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H.B.HaHf 



THE BIBLE 

AND 

MEN OF LEARNING; 

IN 

A COURSE OF LECTURES, 

J. M. MATHEWS, D. D t 




"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all 
they that do his commandments. — Psalm cxi. 10. 



NE W.YORK: 
ANSON D. F. KANDOLPH, 

683 Broadway. 
1859. 



. /V} <f 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty -five 
By J. M. Mathews, D. D. 
in the Clerk's Oiiica of *iio District Court of the Southern District of New-York, 



Gift 



Wrs. Hennen Jennings 
April 26, 1933 



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Law) xx\A>eA) /me) aiyO ail) jyyv| j^ojAk Aa jcxdu, 



3 3 



CONTENTS, 



LECTURE I. 
Men of learning who have fallen into Infidelity. 

LECTURE n. 
Causes of their Infidelity. 

LECTURE m. 
Men of learning who have embraced Christianity , 



LECTURE IV. 
Christianity contrasted with Infidelity in its influence on 
happiness of Man in this world. 

LECTURE V. 
Influence of the Bible on the intellect of Man. 

LECTURE VI. 
The prejudice that extensive learning is hostile to the s 
of true piety. 



PREFACE. 



The origin of these Lectures on the Harmony of 
Learning and Eevelation may be seen in the following 
correspondence. 

New-York, 7th Feb. 1843. 

Kev. Dr. Mathews, 

Dear Sir, During your administration of the 
affairs of the University, and when maturing the enlarg- 
ed system ' of instruction designed for the Institution, 
• you introduced a Professorship of Sacred Literature. 
One object of the proposed Professorship was to vindi- 
cate the Sacred Scriptures from the objections often sup- 
posed to arise from various discoveries in Science and 
Letters. That part of the design has not yet been car- 
ried into effect; but we believe that it has become pe- 
culiarly desirable at the present time, to afford increased 
opportunities of gaining information on these important 
questions; and as you have now released yourself from 
some of your former multiplied labors, we would inquire 
whether you would not undertake to prepare a course of 
public Lectures on the prominent subjects which such 
a department of instruction should embrace. 



8 



PEEFACE. 



In your hands they might be made to assume a form 
which would render them interesting and instructive to 
your various hearers; while they would demonstrate the 
practicability and importance of rendering Sacred Litera- 
ture more generally a prominent branch of instruction. 

Several of us, and others whom we represent in this 
request, have enjoyed the pleasure of being associated 
with you in the important services you have already ren- 
dered to the cause of Learning in our city; and should 
you see fit to accede to the proposal we now make, it 
will give us much satisfaction to co-operate with you in 
any way which might render your labors most agreeable 
to yourself and most useful to the interests of Truth and 
Knowledge. 

We have the honor to be, 

Yours, with great respect, 
James Tallmadge, Thomas J. Oakley, 

George Wood, John Johnston, 

Theodore Frelinghutsen Valentine Mott, 
William Kent, John Slosson, 

John Lorimer Graham, John W. Draper, 
M. Van Schaick, William Curtis Notes, 

George Griswold, William S. Wetmore, 

Thomas Boyd, John C. Hamilton, 

Thomas Suffern, William Mc Murray, 

John C. Green, P. Perit, 

Cortlandt Palmer, William B. Maclay. 



PREFACE. 9 

New-York, 14th February *1 843. 
To Messrs. James Tallmadge, Thomas J. Oaklet, George Wood, 
John Johnston, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Valentine Mott 
William Kent, Esquires, &c. &c. 

GrENTLEMEN, 

I have received your kind communication of the 7th 
instant, and have given it the more careful attention, 
as it com.es from friends to whom my memory will al 
ways recur with sentiments of grateful regard. 

It is very true that I have long been desirous to see 
the Branch of Learning, to which you refer, introduced 
more folly into our Literary Institutions. The aspect of 
the times, and opinions recently promulgated, have also 
greatly strengthened my convictions of its importance. An 
impetus has been given to the minds of men within the 
last thirty or forty years, which has rendered progress in 
Science rapid beyond example. Nature, in her whole 
varied extent, is fast yielding up her secrets. But the 
harmony and connection of these discoveries with the lead- 
ing truths of the Scriptures do not yet seem to be rightly 
understood, or fully appreciated. 

To use the words of an able reasoner on this subject: 
"Some men in their writings, and many in their discoveries, 
go so far as to suppose that they may enjoy a dualism 
of opinions; holding one set, which they may believe as 
Christians, and another whereof they are convinced as 
Philosophers. One does not see how it is possible to make 
accordance between the Mosaic Creation and Cuner's 



10 PKEFACE. 

discoveries: anotlier thinks the history of the dispersions 
incompatible with the number of dissimilar languages now 
existing: a third considers it extremely difficult to explain 
the origin of all mankind from one common parentage. 
So far, therefore, from considering Eeligion, or its Science 
Theology, as entitled to sisterhood with other sciences, it 
is supposed to move on a distinct plane, and to preserve 
a perpetual parallelism with them; which, though it pre- 
vents them from clashing, yet deprives them of mutual 
support." 

But this unwarrantable severance of Eeligion from 
Learning is not the only evil suffered from some of our 
learned men. Scepticism is always assuming new forms. 
Among men of education and refinement it now seldom 
ventures openly and avowedly to assail Christianity. But 
the venom is not the less dangerous because concealed, 
and the minds of educated young men are too frequently 
poisoned before they are aware of it, by the manner and 
connection in which facts and theorems in science are pre- 
sented to them. It is chiefly in this way that in our day 
learning has. not only been perverted, but also subjected 
to unmerited suspicion in the minds of religious men. 
Such a reproach should be wiped away; and recent dis- 
coveries show more and more plainly how triumphantly 
this may be done. I am persuaded there is not one 
among all the sciences which have been tortured into a 
shape adapted to the purposes of infidelity, which may 
not be made to rescue itself from such an injurious per 



PREFACE. 



II 



version; and to confute by its own principles, when folly 
understood, the objections which, have been claimed to 
spring from them. 

'Not is the work done, when Learning has thus re- 
deemed itself from the attitude of hostility to Eeligion. 
It should not be left as standing upon neutral ground. 
Science is the natural ally of Kevelation. The principles 
of the one were designed to furnish most valuable aid in 
establishing and illustrating the doctrines of the other; 
and I deem it the duty of Christian scholars to do what 
they can, to have every fresh discovery which learning 
brings to light, baptized with the spirit of Christianity, 
and laid at the foot of her altars. The consequence 
would be not only a stronger faith in the inspiration of 
the Scriptures, but an increased relish for them, and a 
more complete knowledge of the truths they contain. 

I have seen, with much pleasure, that especially of 
late this object has engaged the attention of able men. 
But the field is very extensive, and requires additional 
labor before it can be brought under adequate cultivation. 
I would esteem it a privilege to have any share in the 
work ; but I must claim the indulgence of a little time 
before I engage in it. 

My health has suffered from the incessant labors 
through which I have passed during the last twelve or 
fifteen years. Leisure and relaxation have become indis- 
pensable to me. Indeed I already feel advantage from 
the respite I have enjoyed during the last few months. 



12 



PREFACE. 



I am persuaded, however, that there is no work to which 
I could more readily or easily turn my attention, than 
that which you^ propose. Some of the subjects which 
would be embraced in such a course of instruction are 
already familiar to me; on others I have been for years 
collecting materials which I hope to render useful to the 
cause of Truth. Your request will induce me to bestow 
increased care and labor upon them ; and if I should be 
able to prepare a course of Lectures or Essays which 
may be deemed of any value, I would feel honored to 
present them to the Public with your approbation and 
under your patronage. 

Believe me, Gentlemen, 

Yours, with sincere regard, 

J. M. Mathews. 

From the time when I commenced the delivery of the 
Lectures which grew out of this correspondence, they 
were received with a spirit of kindness for which I am 
called to express my gratitude; and at the request of 
many among both the clergy and laity, I have for several 
years past employed myself in preparing a work which 
might contribute to show how effectually true learning 
can be made to subserve the great interests of Eeligion. 
It is a task which has called for patient labor; but if 
I have been so happy as in any degree to clear away the 
doubts of sincere inquirers after truth, I have an abun- 
dant reward. 



PREFACE. 



13 



The present volume is in a great measure a review 
of men who have brought their learning, either, on the 
one side to assail Christianity, or on the other, to defend 
it I have endeavored to do full justice to the attainments 
and the characters of both ; and have been careful to draw 
my conclusions not only from their published writings 
but also from their biographies as prepared by themselves 
or by their chosen friends. I have made it my object to 
look not only at their productions but at the men them- 
selves; not only at their learning but at their lives. 

Here I have derived much assistance from our Period- 
ical Literature. I had occasion to observe in a previous 
publication, that the Eeviews and Periodicals of our day 
are no longer to be viewed as mere fingerposts pointing 
to the stores of knowledge. They are the channels through 
which many of the best writers pour forth their intellec- 
tual treasures, giving us their own views combined with 
the views of other men, and generally not diluted, but 
distilled and condensed. It ought to be a source of sin- 
cere thankfulness in the mind of every Christian, that 
whatever might have been the deviations of former times, 
there is scarce a Periodical in the English language of a 
high reputation for talent and learning, which does not 
avow itself as an advocate of Christianity ; nor do I know 
of any subject on which they have shown more ability, 
than when they have set themselves to analyze the cha- 
racter and the spirit of Infidels and of Infidelity. 

I have made several quotations from these articles, and 



14 



PREFACE. 



am indebted to them for many valuable suggestions. 

' I have taken an unusually large space in this volume 
for notes; and I had thought, at one time, of incorpo- 
rating much of the matter which they contain, in the body 
of the Lectures themselves. But as many of those who 
had heard the Lectures wished them published as deliver- 
ed, I have complied with their preference. Much that 
is contained in the notes, however, could not well be dis- 
pensed with when the discourses were to be issued as a 
work from the press. 

In our contest with Infldelhy, the war cannot be car- 
ried into Africa with too much perseverance and deter- 
mination. When the spirit and aim of the Infidel are 
analyzed with a careful scrutiny, "the whited sepulchre" 
will often be found to be so "full of all uncleanness " as 
to furnish an important comment on his creed. It has 
been too much the practice to consider the rejection of 
Christianity rather as an error or misfortune, than as a 
crime. The Bible describes it as heinous sin against God, 
as a wilful war against truth, and not only against the 
truth which lies at the foundation of whatever is stable 
and precious in this world, but against the sacred truth 
on which rests all our hope for the world to come. In 
this light I have endeavored to present it, and as I have 
not shrunk from imputing insincerity and a want of good 
faith, to the men who have distinguished themselves by 
their infidelity, I have felt it due both to my readers and 



PREFACE. 



15 



to myself, that the proof of the charge should be within 
easy reach of the reader. On such points I have accord- 
ingly furnished evidence in the notes, which could not so 
conveniently be introduced into the text of' the Lectures. 

Besides ; as some of the positions which I have taken 
may seem new, such as the indebtedness of the Greeks to 
the Hebrews, in science and art; and as many of the au- 
thorities by which I sustain the views that I present are 
not easily accessible, I have extended the notes on such 
subjects, that my readers might have some of the principal 
references brought at once before them. 

It is not to be expected that in the Lectures which 
are to follow the present volume, I would presume to 
cover every branch of science which should be rescued 
from the hands of infidelity, and shown to be in full har- 
mony with the Scriptures. This must be the work of 
successive writers. I hope to do part of it ; and will en- 
deavor so to classify the subjects which I may take up, 
that each volume will form a work complete within itself, 
independently of the others which may precede or follow 
it. How for I may go, must depend on the good pleasure 
of Him who has fixed the measure of my days on earth. 
I have thus far found the employment a source of pleasure, 
and intend to pursue it as the main object of my future 
years, in the hope that, with the Divine blessing, it may be 
somewhat useful to the great cause of inspired truth. In 



16 



PREFACE. 



the next volume, I take up a subject, which, during seve- 
ral years past, has occupied a large share of attention in 
both the religious and literary worlds. It will be entitled 

THE BIBLE A1STD GEOLOGY WITH ITS RESULTS; 

in which, I hope not only to show the entire harmony 
of the Bible with the settled principles of Geological 
Science, but also to point out various portions of Scrip- 
ture which are signally illustrated by Geological discov- 
eries, and which must otherwise have remained obscure 
and perplexing. 



Men of Learning who have Mien into Infidelity, 



I Cor. i. 20. 

6i Where is the scribe ? Where is the dispute?' of 
this world ? " 

The two great enemies of Divine Revelation are 
Superstition on the one hand, and Infidelity on the 
other. The former professes to believe in Christia- 
nity, but obscures and often buries it beneath the 
inventions and traditions of men. The latter re- 
jects it, either in whole or in part, as untrue and 
irrational. But in nothing is the difference between 
the two more decided and marked, than in their 
mode of assailing the truth. Superstition generally 
makes its assaults openly and without disguise, 
"going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom it 
may devour." Infidelity, at least in its beginnings, 

is usually both timid and treacherous. It masks 

13 



14 FIEST LECTURE. 

its earliest attacks, and approaches like the tiger, 
crouching ; hut when it makes its spring, the hound 
is the more dangerous and fatal. 

This mask is not always the same. It is chang- 
ed according to times and circumstances, or accord- 
ing to the attainments and taste of the men who 
wear it. Some have objected to the Bible on the 
plea that it teaches a loose morality, and declare 
their better feelings to be shocked at practices which 
it tolerates and seems to commend. Others hesitate 
to avow their faith in the Holy Book, because it 
teaches doctrines which, if not irrational, in their 
view are mysterious and unintelligible, and there- 
fore not entitled to our belief. A still different class 
are found catching at every seeming inconsistency 
between one part of Scripture and another ; and 
instead of inquiring as candid judges, how the 
discrepancy may be explained and removed, they 
strive, by every art of special pleading, to render it 
glaring and repulsive. 

But often as Infidelity has fled to these and 
similar subterfuges, there is no covering under which 
it has assailed Christianity more injuriously, than 
when it hides itself under the show of Learning; 



FIRST LECTURE. 15 

nor is there a branch of Letters or Science which 
has not sooner or later been pressed into the un- 
holy service. The stores of antiquarian lore have 
been ransacked, and weapons of attack brought 
forth, the weakness of which it was hoped, might 
be hidden under the rust of ages which covered 
them. In generations which have but lately pass- 
ed by, the war was maintained in the abstruse and 
bewildering region of metaphysics ; and when such 
assaults have been repelled, and all that is certain 
and fixed in metaphysical science was proved to 
be on the side of Revelation, the enemy has made 
new demonstrations. He has torn open the bowels 
of the earth to discover fossil remains that might 
say something against the Bible ; he has carried 
his unwearied observations into the heavens, in 
hopes that he could persuade "the stars in their 
courses" to contradict the word of their Creator; 
he has even dissected and analyzed the human 
frame, in hope^to find something in the complexion 
or figure of the diversified tribes of our race which 
might contradict the inspired account of the origi- 
nal creation of man. 

It is generally known that in this noble and 



16 



FIRST LECTURE. 



ennobling department of knowledge — Physical 
Science— the Infidelity of the present day is most 
ambitious to display itself. It has here a field 
which is not only wide, but which is constantly and 
rapidly widening. The impulse that has lately 
been given to discoveries in the material world, is 
without a parallel. They are pervading "the heav- 
ens above and the earth beneath, and the waters un- 
der the earth ;" and in this wide range which Science 
is now taking, contributing at every step to enlarge 
the boundaries of human knowledge and human 
happiness, Infidelity still aspires to follow, and 
views nothing too high or too sacred for its profane 
purposes. It would lay its hand on both the teles- 
cope and the microscope, and reaching from the stars 
and suns that are the centres of other worlds, down 
to the tiny insect which is invisible to the naked 
eye, it seems to hope that its career may be pro- 
longed by the amplitude of the field before it ; and 
that, if detected and exposed in one fallacy, it may 
fly to another, and hide itself under some new sub- 
terfuge of deceit. 

In these profligate flights too, it has derived 
advantages not only from the excitement always 



FIRST LECTU'RE. 17 

attending new and vast discoveries, but also from 
that spirit of haste which impels all classes of man- 
kind in the present age of the world. Onward, 
onward seems to be the great watch word of our 
times. The traveller listens to it as he steams his 
way over land and sea with a speed that outstrips 
the wind. The merchant listens to it as he makes 
haste to be rich, and turns away with disgust from 
patient toil. And while all such pursuits of life 
are stimulated into increased rapidity of pro- 
gress ; notwithstanding the prescriptive right of 
the philosopher to be calm and deliberate, he also 
is often carried away by the same ambition which 
animates men around him. He would have the 
fable of " Mercury on wings" ripen into reality. He 
will be satisfied with nothing short of a railroad 
speed on the highway of knowledge, and the 
lightning of the telegraph must make discove- 
ries in science with the same despatch that it com- 
municates the common occurrences of the pass- 
ing hours. 

But while this spirit of progress with men of 
learning is to be hailed as the harbinger and means 
of invaluable good, it is at the same time attended 



18 FIRST LECTURE. 

with dangers which should never he overlooked, 
The great truths of Nature often lie deep, very 
deeply hidden; and we are liahle to imagine that 
we have fathomed them to their depths, when we 
have only just touched their surface. Her works 
and laws also are far from standing alone, or iso- 
lated one from another. They are all coin Dined 
into a harmonious system, of which the parts might 
he considered as deformities or imperfections, if 
viewed hy themselves ; and yet when viewed in 
their relation to the whole, are essential to its beauty 
and perfection. In this way our Creator has en- 
stamped upon his own works the image of him- 
self, shewing that "he sees the end from the be- 
ginning, and makes all things work together for 
good." And there is danger, great danger, that in 
discoveries recently made, and investigations hastily 
conducted by short sighted man, we may leave 
many of them in a crude undigested state, neither 
reduced to their proper form, nor carried home to 
their proper place in the great systems of truth and 
wisdom. 

Now it should always be remembered that it 
is just when scientific attainments are yet imper- 



FIRST LECTURE. 19 

feet, fresh and unmatured, and the bearing of dis- 
coveries not fully ascertained, that Infidelity is 
most able to array them in apparent conflict with 
the Scriptures. "While it has not yet mastered 
the alphabet of Science, it would be a judge of 
the most difficult questions in syntax and prosody. 
"A little learning is a dangerous thing ;" danger- 
ous to the man himself, for it often makes him 
vain and self-sufficient, and dangerous also to the 
truth according as it is sacred and precious. But 
enlarged learning, learning that goes deep and sees 
far, and takes patient care to gain a full know- 
ledge before it pronounces judgment, is learning 
from which the Bible has nothing to fear, and 
much to gain. There is scarcely a branch of Science 
to which this observation does not apply ; and we 
have recently seen a remarkable example of it. It 
must be known to many of us, that, when some of 
the early Geologists made their investigations in 
the structure of the earth, they pronounced the 
Cosmogony of Moses erroneous and unphilosophical. 
But after they had taken time to review their first 
opinions, and to carry their inquiries farther and 
deeper, they found that Moses was right both as 



20 FIEST LECTUEE. 

to fact and philosophy, and that they themselves 
had been wrong. 

Well would it have been for the world if all 
learned men who, like them, have at first made a 
false step, had also, like them, the wisdom to see 
it, and the honesty to own it. But far otherwise 
is the case. There is a pride of opinion with some, 
which prevents them from confessing an error even 
when they see it. There is a vanity, a love of 
notoriety with others, that delights in discarding 
what the multitude receive as truth. And with 
others, if not with them all, there is an appetite, a 
love for what the Bible forbids on pain of heaven's 
wrath, which inclines them to devise and to carry 
out, far as they can, every plea that may prom- 
ise to impair or destroy the divine authority of His 
revealed will. 

Of course, although there may be times when 
Infidelity shows a bolder front than at others, yet, 
while man remains fallen and corrupt, we must 
expect to meet it in some of its multiplied forms. 
The war between it and the Bible is a war of ex- 
termination. Be it so. "We have no fear as to the 
final result. We not only hope, but we know the 



FIKST LECTURE. 21 

day is coming when error shall he utterly destroy- 
ed from the face of the earth hy the all-prevail- 
ing power of divine truth. But the contest must 
endure for many years to come before that consum- 
mation shall he reached ; and as depravity, the pro- 
lific root of Infidelity, is a disease which has spread 
from the highest to the lowest of our race, we mast 
expect to meet the humbling spectacle of men who 
have distinguished their names in the cause of Sci- 
ence, tarnishing their honors hy mingling in the 
ranks of those who reject the holy "Word of God. 

Let us then at the outset take a fair view of In- 
fidelity in this aspect. The Gospel, which declares 
itself to he " Christ, the power of God and the 
wisdom of God," does not require us to disparage 
the attainments or the numbers of those who un- 
dervalue its claims. It would have us do them full 
justice. In another discourse we shall endeavor to 
show that if the question in dispute is to be settled 
by the authority of names, the argument may be 
viewed as at an end. "We have a majority that re- 
moves every doubt. On the one side are lumina- 
ries, it is true; but they are "wandering stars," 
however bright and glaring, yet baleful in their 



22 FIRST LECTURE. 

course ; and on the other side, are not only stars, 
but constellations, pouring forth their healthful and 
enlightening brilliancy on our sin-darkened world. 
But we would not in this summary way turn aside 
from the point before us ; and admitting that Sci 
ence and Letters have at times been arrayed against 
Christianity, let us see what estimate should be 
formed of the unnatural hostility. Our limits will 
confine us to a selection of names, and we will ad- 
vert chiefly to those whom all admit to be the strong- 
est men and best scholars that Infidelity can claim. 
We ask then, in the language of Paul, " Where is 
the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world?" 
Let them be produced. Let us become acquainted 
with their strength and their attainments, and "the 
measure of their stature." 

We meet with them far back in the annals of 
time. Their hostility began with the man who be- 
gan the Bible. " The magicians " of Egypt, who 
encountered Moses when he appeared as an inspired 
Prophet, was but another name for the literati of 
that day. He came, performing miracles, to attest 
the inspiration of his message; and they endeav- 
oured to discredit this evidence of his mission from 



FIE ST LECTURE. 23 

heaven, by imitating and explaining away the mira- 
cles which he wrought; just as the philosophers 
and neoloofists of later times have endeavored to 
invalidate the argument drawn from the wonders 
performed by prophets, by apostles, and by our Lord 
himself. And as the dawn of Scriptural light in 
Old Testament times awakened such opposition in 
Egypt; in after days, when the fuller radiance of 
the New Testament shone upon the world, it was 
met with the same hostility in every nation to 
which, it spread. Referring to the resistance which 
the great leader and prophet of Israel had encoun- 
tered in his ministry, Paul tells us, "now as Jannes 
and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also re- 
sist the truth ; men of corrupt minds, reprobate con- 
cerning the faith. But," he adds, "they shall pro- 
ceed no further ; their folly shall be manifest unto 
all men, as their's also was." And in this connec- 
tion I may remark, that the apostle here states a truth 
that should never be forgotten in our contests with 
Infidelity. He alludes to the apparent success with 
which the magicians of Egypt, for a time, succeed- 
ed in imitating and discrediting the miracles of 
Moses, "with their enchantments" and "lying won- 



24 FIRST LECTURE. 

ders," "wherein they lay in wait to deceive;" and 
he reminds us of how they were at length brought 
to a stand, could " proceed no further," and confess- 
ed " This is the finger of God," thus "making their 
folly manifest," and giving a testimony to the divine 
mission of the prophet, which was the more con vine- 
ing and important as it came from those who had 
before denied and derided it. Such the apostle 
would have us know must be the final issue of 
every conflict between truth and error. He who 
saith to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come but no 
further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," 
has always set bounds to opposers and scoffers, which 
they cannot pass. "He makes the wrath of man 
to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he re- 
strains." "He taketh the wise in their own crafti- 
ness." He allows them to oppose his truth only so 
far as will make their confusion the more complete, 
when their own weapons are turned against them, 
and "their folly is made manifest" by means of 
their own deeds ; and if the voice of uninspired his- 
tory is to be credited, the apostle saw in his own 
day a signal instance of this, in one whose name is 
not embalmed but impaled in the pages of Scrip- 



FIRST LECTURE. 25 

ture. " Simon the Magician," an apostate from the 
faith he had once professed, " giving out that him- 
self was some great one," seems to have been a lead- 
ing man in propagating the sophistries of Infidelity 
and impiety ; and the occasion of his apostacy was 
so ordered by the overruling hand of G-od, as to 
demonstrate beyond all doubt the baseness and prof- 
ligacy of the motives which led to his opposition. 

Prom the days of the apostles, I might come 
down and recite to you the names of Celsus, Por- 
phyry, Hierocles, who were distinguished in the 
early centuries as Platonic Philosophers, and also 
as avowed antagonists of the G-ospel. In the brief 
sketch however, to which we confine ourselves, we 
can barely allude to such men. The largest mea- 
sure of liberality to their claims cannot require of 
us to do anything more. The great majority of them 
are like flies in amber, preserved from oblivion by 
the medium in which they are held. Their names 
and their works are known to us chiefly through 
the writings of the Fathers, who quoted them in 
order to refute them; nor would they be acknow- 
leged by Infidelity as champions in her cause. 

To find those to whom she would assign that 



26 FIRST LECTURE. 

pre-eminence, we must turn to a later period in the 
history of the world and of the church. We must 
come down through century after century, till we 
have reached comparatively modern times. "We 
must pass "by what are usually termed the Dark 
Ages ; for during that long slumber of intellect and 
learning, Infidelity, like every other movement of the 
human mind, seems to have been brought to a pause. 
It was not the form in which the great enemy of 
Christianity then desired to act. While the Church 
and her ministry slept, it was his policy to remain 
quiet, that they might not be waked up. 

But when the trumpet of truth was blown in 
the days of the Reformation, and Religion and 
Learning began to bestir themselves after their long 
slumber ; then also Infidelity raised its head and dis- 
played its opposition. When Luther and Beza, and 
Calvin and Cranmer, and Latimer and Ridley, had 
taken their stand at the altar of heaven, and had 
brought into light the long-hidden truths of the 
Gospel ; and when, in the generations following, such 
men as Bacon, Boyle, Locke and Newton in Eng- 
land ; and Galileo, Kepler, DesCartes and Leibnitz 
on the continent of Europe, gave a fresh impulse, 



FIRST LECTURE. 27 

with a new form and spirit, to Philosophy and Sci- 
ence ; it was then that Hohbes displayed his art and 
subtilty in his work, boastfully called the Levia- 
than, endeavoring to subvert the cardinal principles 
of Christianity ; then did Shaftesbury send abroad 
his polished blasphemies in his Characteristics; it 
was then also that Bayle, Spinoza, Blount, Toland, 
Bolingbroke and others, joined in the same guilty 
warfare. They were all met and overthrown by 
christian writers of the massive strength which be- 
longed to the learning of that day ; and as evil in 
our world is always overruled for good, their as- 
saults led to the establishment of the famous Boyle 
Lectureship, as a permanent defence of Christianity, 
and from which have been produced some of the 
ablest discourses in our language, demonstrating the 
truth and authenticity of the Bible. 

In referring to this multitude of freethinkers, 
who came forth as locusts over the land, it should 
be mentioned that we do not find many among 
them who can be called men of great learning ; and 
if a few of their number might claim such a dis- 
tinction, their Infidelity was so revolting and mon- 
strous in its blasphemies, as to render it compara- 



28 FIRST LECTURE. 

tively harmless. They owed their fame, such as h 
was, to causes which existed before them, and in 
one sense called them into being. They generally 
flourished in what is known as the corrupt age of 
C^rlesthe Second, when the land was deluged with 
practical irreligion, and the way prepared for the 
wild speculations of Infidelity. They were more 
like the insects which are generated in the miasma 
of a soil, already pestilential and deadly, than like 
the dragon whose pestiferous breath has been repre- 
sented as having the power to blight and destroy 
whatever is lovely and precious in the Edens he in- 
vades. That gigantic power of mischief and ruin 
soon afterwards began to be developed, especially in 
three men, who were singularly adapted to act to- 
gether as partners in their common object as infidels. 
And not waiting to enumerate many others who 
were their coternporaries and fellow-laborers, let us 
contemplate that peculiar potency for evil which 
was displayed in Hume, Rousseau and Voltaire, 
when they formed their unholy alliance. 

It has been justly observed, that there is scarce 
an avenue to the heart in all the varieties of hu- 
man character, but some one of the three had ex- 



FIEST LECTURE. 29 

actly the talent to reach it. Hume's mind was 
carried away by his fondness for new theories, his 
ambition to be found on debatable ground, and the 
vanity of making good his position by arguments 
that might perplex, if they did not convince. He 
describes himself, with evident complacency, as a 
"friend to doubts, disputes and novelties;'' and so 
lightly did he value truth, whether as a philosopher 
or a historian, that he could sacrifice it with the 
coldest indifference, either to vindicate a speculation, 
or to gratify a prejudice. "With such a spirit did 
HumejDrosecute his attacks on Christianity. In a 
philosophy that sets at defiance the more fixed and 
acknowledged laws of evidence, and in a history 
abundant in false colorings and garbled statements, 
all written in a style of almost Grecian ease and 
finish, he prevailed with readers who, obdurate in 
heart, and ambitious to be thought more knowing 
than other men, loved to wrap themselves up in the 
mists of barren and uncertain speculations. Rous - 
seau's mind resembled the crater of a burning vol- 
cano^ E very thin g jfoaj^came from his pen seemed 
fused by a melting heat. He wrote for readers who 

are governed by impulse, rather than by a taste for 

2 



30 FIEST LECTURE. 

sober reasoning ; and by a show of sincerity well 
adapted to win upon the unwary, and by a vivid- 
ness of imagery that makes his eloquence dazzling 
and deceptive, he seldom failed to lead captive those 
whom he aimed to teach. The scope of Yoltaire's 
mind was more universal. He is not only to be 
reckoned among the Encyclopedists of his day, but he 
himself resembled an Encyclopedia of knowledge. 
He touched upon everything, but instead of adorning, 
he defaced or perverted much that he touched. There 
is scarce any region of intellect with which his 
name is not more or less connected ; and, as if glory- 
ing in the power of his multiform talents, he im- 
piously boasted, that " while it required twelve men 
to write Christianity up, he would show that one 
man could write it down." He labored for his ob- 
ject through a long life, and with unabated zeal ; and 
by the keenness of his wit and satire, and his 
strong picturing of sensuality and the grosser vices, 
he became the favorite oracle of those who lay less 
within the reach of his two great cotemporaries and 
fellow-laborers in the cause of irreligion. 

It is frightful even to recollect the havoc and 
desolation which were wrought by these three 



FIRST LECTURE. 31 

champio ns of Inf i delity and their coadjutors. Their 
baleful influence was felt from the palace to the cot- 
tage. They unhinged the fairest forms of society 
throughout a whole Continent. They were lepers 
whose touch was defilement. In the language of 
the Evangelist, the name of the unclean spirit that 
possessed them was " Legion." Like the reckless de- 
moniac himself, "no man could bind them, neither 
could any man tame them." Like him also, their 
" dwelling was among the tombs ;" for wherever 
they went, it became a field of death around them, 
a vast G-olgotha, where was entombed or scattered 
abroad every thing most essential to the welfare and 
happiness of man. But alas, how unlike the poor 
G-adarene in their end! The word of Divine pow- 
er commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the 
man, reached his heart with subduing efficacy; and 
we see him at once "sitting at the feet of Jesus, 
clothed and in his right mind." But they, we must 
fear, died as they had lived ; the demons which pos- 
sessed them, never exorcised to the last. 

After them however arose one who stands un- 
equalled among men in the lasting mischief he has 
wrought against truth and religion ; and I refer to 



3.2 FIRST LECTURE 

him more particularly, because of the effort, recently 
made to keep his chief work before the public eye. 
The name of G-ibbon willat once rise to your minds, 
as entitled to this guilty pre-eminence. "When we 
think of what he once was, what he became, and 
what he did, we are reminded of the Star in the Apo- 
calypse " whose name was Wormwood, and which, 
burning as a lamp, fell from heaven on the rivers 
and waters, and men died of the waters, because 
they were made bitter." If we compare him with 
other infidel writers whom we have named, it 
would almost seem as if the Powers of darkness 
had aimed to imitate the Most High in the creation 
of the world, reserving the choicest specimen of 
their workmanship for the last. If " there were gi- 
ants in the earth in those days," among the enemies 
of truth, he was " taller than any of them from the 
shoulders upwards." He is the Goliath of the 
Philistine host ; and when he comes forth " defying 
the armies of the living God," " the staff of his 
spear is like a weaver's beam." 

His feeling of hatred was peculiar. There is no 
enmity or bitterness like that of an apostate. Nero 
was cruel and reckless in shedding the blood of 



FIRST LECTUKE 33 

Christians, but he showed nothing like the intensity 
of rage " against the Lord and against His Anoint- 
ed," which was displayed by the apostate Julian, 
who had once professed Christianity and then re- 
nounced it. Gibbon had, in turn, been a member of 
the Protestant Church of England, of the Roman 
Catholic Church, of the Protestant Church on the 
Continent ; and in the end became an apostate from 
religion in all these various forms ; carrying with 
him an enmity of a three-fold strength, as if the 
venom had been concentrated anew by every fresh 
renunciation through which he had passed. 

Under this stimulus, and with qualifications ol 
mind, study, and travel, richly furnishing him for 
the accomplishment of his task, he produced the 
" History of the Decline and Pall of the Roman 
Empire/' a work which stands among the most 
splendid achievements of human intellect, and the 
most dangerous of the attacks ever made upon Di- 
vine Revelation. From the nature of the subject, 
it furnished a high and unequalled advantage to the 
infidel Historian. There has been but one Rome, 
and it is scarcely to be expected that another will 
rise hereafter. The empire not less than the city 



34 FIKST LECTUEE. 

which bears that lofty name, appropriated to itself 
with unsparing hand whatever formed the brightest 
glories of other nations, until it rose into a mag- 
nificence both sublime and gigantic ; and when such 
a structure is seen fallen and decayed, there is a 
grandeur in the ruins that is irresistibly impressive 
and absorbing. It is Home draped in the hallowed 
light of all her departed glory that G-ibbon depicts 
to us with his graphic pen. It was, as he tells us 
himself, while he sat musing amidst the ruins ot 
the Capitol, covered with the evening shades of an 
Italian autumn, and listening to the Friars chanting 
their vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that he con- 
ceived the purpose of his work ; and as if imbued 
with the spirit of the exciting scene before him, he 
has quickened into life the Forum and the Trium- 
phal Arch, and made them tell their stories of the 
greatness which once ennobled the generations of 
antiquity, And then, when he has depicted to us 
these scenes of decayed splendor till we long for 
something fresh and new, he leads us away, evok- 
ing from the fragments of the dilapidated empire, 
nations and institutions wearing the form and 
breathing the spirit of later ages. But although he 



FIRST LECTURE. 35 

is thus the historian of both the ancient and mo- 
dern worlds, he is not oppressed by the vastness of 
his plan, or embarrassed or confused by the diversi- 
ty and magnitude of his materials. Under his po- 
tent wand they all settle down into their appropri- 
ate places, and assume a finished symmetry, till we 
have a work before us which, notwithstanding the 
blemishes of a style at times so stately as to be al- 
most turgid, has placed the author on a pedestal 
among historians, from which he is not to be shaken. 

But, as if animated with the cunning of "that 
old serpent which deceiveth the nations," he has so 
constructed the whole, as to make it a running li- 
bel on Christianity. An opportunity for "sapping a 
solemn creed with solemn sneer" seldom escapes 
him. But his sneers are comparatively harmless. 
Neither is it his direct and open attacks on the 
truths of Christianity that we should chiefly dread. 
"When he has dared to come out and show himself, 
he has been met and overthrown. The chief danger 
from Gibbon is of a different kind. "Dan," says the 
Patriarch, " shall be a serpent by the wayside, an 
adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, so 
that his rider shall fall backwards." And the lan- 



36 FIEST LECTURE . 

guage is strikingly descriptive of the subtilty and 
treachery which distinguish Gibbon as an infidel 
writer. He has planted himself on one of the great 
highways of knowledge, and like " an adder in the 
path," he hides his venomous designs from the un- 
wary traveller. All historians have facilities pecu- 
liar to themselves for misleading their readers ; and 
Gibbon has availed himself of them to the fullest 
extent. "With the artfulness of which he is an ac- 
complished master, and which it sometimes requires 
great care and study to detect, he places facts in 
such aspects and relations as must lead to conclu- 
sions directly at variance with truth and justice. 
While he would only seem to be giving harmony 
and continuity to his narrative, he often contrives to 
clothe the corrupt and scandalous institutions of Pa- 
ganism in aspects so attractive that we almost 
grieve to part with them, lest we should bury in 
their grave whatever forms the grace and the gran- 
deur of the world's best days ; while the debasing 
and gross sensuality which accompanied them, is 
either palliated or studiously kept out of view. 
When he describes the progress of Mahomet, it is 
done with a vividness and an exultation, that might 



FIKST LECTURE. 37 

incline the minds of his ardent readers to join in 
chanting a triumph to that chief among impostors ; 
while the deceit, violence, and blood, by which the 
Koran was spread, receive scarce a passing censure. 
But when he describes the progress and fruits of the 
G-ospel among the nations, his pencil seems to have 
been dipped in the coldness and deadness of the 
sepulchre. "Whatever may be the other systems of 
faith and forms of worship which he recommends 
or embellishes, Christianity is held up as having 
scarce a redeeming quality to atone for the wrongs 
he imputes to it. With an avidity which he can- 
not conceal, he recites and parades the errors and 
faults of Christians, showing that he gloried in their 
shame ; but theL noble examples of faith and* pa- 
tience when they either died martyrs to the truth, 
or spread streams of salvation through a lost and 
suffering world, awaken no sentiment of admiration ; 
or if at times he is compelled by the force of truth 
to speak of their illustrious deeds, he doles out his 
reluctant and scanty commendations, grudgingly as 
a miser w^ould part with his gold, impatient till he 
can close his hand and give no more. 

Nor is this all : painful as it is to expose dishon- 



38 FIEST LECTURE. 

esty and bad faith in a writer of Gibbon s powerful 
mind, when we find him framing such mysteries of 
iniquity, such insidious attacks on Christianity; 
with what abhorrence of the man must we contem- 
plate him, when we see him descending to the low 
mire of obscenity. True indeed, shame forbade him 
to translate his disgusting pictures of sensuality into 
his own language, and to interweave them with the 
text of his pages. But his evident relish for them 
was so great that he could not part with them ; and 
the shape and the place in which he has left them 
serve to show the deep art with which he has con- 
trived to make even this portion of his work the 
more dangerous and hurtful. "It is no apology for 
this insult upon the public morals" as has been well 
observed, "an insult of many years continuance, 
that the poison was confined to his notes, and en- 
veloped in the cover of a dead and difficult lan- 
guage. It did more mischief than his Infidelity 
It addresses itself to the imagination and the pas- 
sions of an age which needed not to be inflamed by 
intellectual incentives — to the youth of our great 
schools and universities, who, captivated by the se- 
ductive charms of his text, would be further at- 



FIRST LECTURE. 39 

tracted, by the learned semblance of his notes, to 
descend to the polluted margin, where they might 
decipher Greek, and drink in vice and profligacy by 
the same effort." 

Such is a brief view of the adroitness and in- 
dustry with which Gibbon has aimed to mislead 
and defile the minds of his readers, in his "Decline 
and Pall of the Roman Empire." A poison thus 
artfully prepared has not been harmless. It has 
spread contagion into the minds of many ; of many 
who have never been restored from its deadly influ- 
ence, and of others who have been healed only by 
remedies which not every physician has the ability 
to obtain or administer. It seems to have been a 
great design with Gibbon, from the beginning to the 
end of his work, that impiety and unbelief should 
be imbibed from his pages, insensibly; just as dis- 
ease is taken from an infected atmosphere by breath- 
ing it. No ordinary precaution can avail to give 
security against it ; nor can the notes of commenta- 
tors, though prepared with the diligence and ability 
of a Milman or a Guizot, either abstract or neu* 
tralize the poison. The fabric is dyed in the wool. 
Blasphemy and irreligion form a part of its very 



40 FIRST L EC T U EE . 

elements ; and though a texture of gorgeous magni- 
ficence, it must remain from end to end, smitten 
with the " fretting leprosy" of Infidelity "in_jkhe 
warp and in the woof." 

If you will excuse the digression, I would ask, 
are we never to see a work rising "beside it, equal- 
ing, if not surpassing it in grandeur, and yet free 
from its depravity and deceit? Are we never to see 
it ? The church needs it, and the world needs it. 
Religion needs it, and learning needs it. Could I % 
call spirits from the vasty deep, and make them 
come, I would enlist from the multitudes of the 
gifted and the learned, some intellect of superior 
might, who would immortalize his name with such 
a monument of learning. The power of the gospel 
in renovating the world and elevating man from 
the degradation of ignorance and guilt, was never 
more fully displayed than when it found Rome 
sinking from the zenith of her grandeur into the 
depth of her humiliation. When that vast empire, 
which claimed to have a dominion co-extensive 
with the world, crumbled into fragments, "the earth 
and all the inhabitants thereof were dissolved." 
Chaos had come again, and " darkness was upon 



FIEST LECTURE. 41 

the face of the deep." The allwise Disposer of events 
allowed our world thus to become "without form 
and void," in order to furnish a new and a world- 
wide demonstration of the public and private bless- 
ings which follow in the train of Christianity. The 
whole structure of society was to be re-cast and vivi- 
fied under the life-giving power of His word, who in 
the beginning had said, " Let there be light, and there 
was light;" and there is not in all the wide regions 
of knowledge a greater desideratum than a history 
written with the enlightened spirit of the christian, 
the philanthropist and the statesman, and which 
will award to Christianity its just claims in the 
changes then wrought on the condition and desti- 
nies of the human race. For, as has been said in 
language equally just and beautiful, " How vague 
in general is our notion of this the most remarkable 
change which has ever been wrought in the state of 
mankind ! The violent and rapid conquests of Mo- 
hammedanism are clear and intelligible ; a con- 
quering nation overruns a great part of the world, 
and establishes its faith upon the ruins which its 
arms have made. The triumph of Christianity is 
the secret progress of opinion, working at first no 



42 FIRST LECTURE. 

change in the existing forms or relations of society, 
but gradually detaching individuals, cities, nations, 
from their ancestral faith ; still growing in numeri- 
cal superiority, compressing the inert resistance of 
its antagonist into a narrower compass ; not' sweep- 
ing clear and levelling the ground for the erection 
of its new system, but springing up, as it were, like 
a fresh growth of vigorous trees above a decaying 
forest, which gradually withers down into a thin 
and perishing under- wood, till at length it entirely 
dies away, or only hangs a few parasitical branch- 
es upon the stately grove which has succeeded to its 
place and honors." We have nothing which fills up 
the outlines presented in this happy illustration. 
There is no want of ably written works which place 
the pure morality and spiritual worship and social 
refinement of Christianity in contrast with the de- 
baucheries, superstitions and barbarities of Pagan- 
ism. But no historian has yet arisen who fully 
traces out and unfolds the noiseless yet all pervad- 
ing power of the G-ospel in re-modelling the whole 
structure of society ; in disusing new sympathies 
and a higher purity through all the social and do- 
mestic relations of life; in creating new views of 



FIKST LECTURE. 43 

civil rights and civil duties, imparting a new tone 
and spirit to legislation and jurisprudence ; in giv- 
ing enlargement and elevation to cultivated intel- 
lect and rescuing the masses of a nation from igno- 
rance, barbarity and wretchedness. We must have 
all this done with the discrimination of a sound 
philosophy and the reverence of a christian spirit, 
before justice can be rendered to Christianity as sent 
" for the healing of the nations;" and no doubt the 
day is coming when such a work will be given to 
the world under the blessing of Him with whom is 
"the residue of the spirit." 

To return : in the brief review which we have 
given of Infidelity among men of learning, we have 
endeavored to be not only just but liberal in our es- 
timate of their attainments ; and as we proposed at 
the outset, in our selection we have brought forward 
no name of inferior note. We might have extend- 
ed the list by referring to D' Alembert, Diderot, Con- 

* niif.iri»i»-nin r- - - ■ .. - - 

dorcet, and others of their rank. But whatever 
may have been their standing in literature, they be- 
longed to a school of which Yoltaire was master. 
They served in an army of which the men to whom 
I have chiefly referred were leaders ; an army of such 



44 FIRST LECTUBE. 

unequalled numbers and strength as to have rend- 
ered the century in which they lived, I will not say 
the golden, but the brazen age of infidels and scof- 
fers. That inglorious distinction must be admit- 
ted as belonging to the century now past; and if, 
since its close, the war has still been continued by 
a few who hold a high rank in science, their hostili- 
ty, as we will hereafter show, has generally been 
disguised if not timid, aiming to hide itself under 
some new name, and rather to sap the foundations 
of Christianity than to destroy the citadel by storm. 
The hardened forehead of Infidelity, which openly 
glories in its own shame, is not often found in our 
day among the refined and the intelligent, but 
among the low and the vulgar. 

And now, in conclusion of this lecture, let us 
turn and look back; and after this brief review of 
what the ablest infidels, whether of ancient or mo- 
dern times, have done, or attempted to do, let us ask 
what they have accomplished against the Christian 
faith ? Have they impaired its beauty, or rendered its 
foundation less stable or secure ? They have led on 
their attacks under banners of every form and color. 
They have chosen their implements of warfare from 



FIEST LECTURE, 



45 



every arsenal^ of learni ng ; from nistory, from phi- 



sarcasm and wit have been used without stint. 
But let them bring their armour or their arms 
whence they may, in their prolonged and unsparing 
hostility ; can they tell us of the progress they have 
made in the accomplishment of their unholy de- 
sign? Have they even lessened, much less over- 
thrown the credibility of a single page or a single 
sentence in the whole Bible ? They have the map 
of the civilized world before them ; can they draw 
their ringer over it, and show us that by means of 
their untiring labors the territory held by Christi- 
anity has been curtailed in its limits or reduced in 
its strength ? 

But if the Bible is untrue, or Christianity a de- 
ception, as they would have us believe, let us con- 
sider the great advantages which they have in their 
hands for showing it to be so. 

Let us remember that no deception or imposture 

can possibly stand the test of time. It is as true of 

falsehood as of murder, that sooner or later it " will 

out." You cannot by any ingenuity conceal either 

of them always. Some prying eye of a close ob- 

3 



iosophy, from the arts ; while tb^Hghter 




of 



4o FIRST LECTUEE. 

server, or some unforeseen occurrence, will bring them 
to light. Fruitful of such evils as the ingenuity of 
man has been in all ages, there is no imposture to 
be named which has lived beyond a few genera- 
tions, or perhaps, I might say beyond a few years, 
where general intelligence and freedom of inquiry 
prevail. The Koran loses its hold on the public 
mind wherever information spreads among the 
people ; and the superstitions which at various times 
have aimed to baptise themselves with the name of 
Christianity, owe their existence to the prevalence 
of the maxim, that ignorance is the mother of de- 
votion. But the Grospel, revealing the way of life 
through a crucified Redeemer, has been received in 
nation after nation, meeting with the freest exami- 
nation of the wise and well informed; in fact, cre- 
ating inquiry and intelligence as one of its fruits ; 
and what has been the result ? The Book is be- 
fore us. Thousands of years have passed away 
since the greater portion of it was written, and it 
never appeared more unsullied and impregnable 
than it does this day, as its very foes admit. In its 
own beautiful language, " No weapon that is form- 
ed against it has prospered, and every tongue that 



FIEST LECTUEE. 47 

has risen against it in judgment, it has condemn- 
ed." And while it stands thus strong and unshaken 
against the assaults of man, Time, even Time him- 
self, that wastes and puts the mark of decay on 
every thing created by human wisdom and human 
power, only adds to the stability and grandeur of 
the Holy Book. Come or go, rise or fall, perish or 
endure whatever may^Jth^^^Bible still seems to en- 
trench itself anew with some fresh demonstration 
of its truth ; and not only does it stand unmoved 
and immovable amid all the changes passing 
around it, but it claims to itself the high distinction 
of being alone able to stand among all the forms 
of faith and worship that men have ever embraced. 
And well it may. It Jias seen false divinities 
beyond number, as Baal, Ashtaroth, Jove, Minerva 
and Mars covered up in a common grave of obli- 
vion, or re_membered only as phantoms of deluded 
nations ; but Jehovah, Jehovah whom it has taught 
from the beginning as the true God, the only God, 
is to this day still on his " throne, high and lifted 
up," " the same yesterday, to-day and for ever." 
It has seen Sibylline verses which claimed to be 
divinely inspired, scattered to the winds as re- 



48 FIRST LECTURE. 

cords of deceit and folly ; while not a word or syl- 
lable of its own is marred or lost in the current of 
ages as they roll by. And then, let me add, when 
it has challenged comparison with these discarded 
divinities, these scattered records of deceit ; it goes 
on, and in defiance of time to come, as in triumph 
over time past, it stakes its reputation for truth on 
the prediction that it will still endure, as the reve- 
lation of grace to man, when time himself shall 
be no longer. There is but one explanation to be 
given of all this, to be given of this incorruptibility 
and endurance of the Bible. We have it from the 
Book itself. " All flesh is as grass," says the Pro- 
phet, " and all the glory of man as the flower of 
the grass." " The grass withereth, and the flower^ 
thereof falleth away ; but the word of the Lord en- 
dureth forever," and it endureth forever, because it 
is the word of the Lord. 

But farther; we may perhaps conceive of some 
fiction or imposture so carefully framed and guard- 
ed at all points by the practised sagacity of its 
author, that it might be difficult to detect and ex- 
pose it after the most patient examination. But if 
so, it should treat of but one subject, it should be 



FIRST LECTURE. 49 

the work of one man, and should be framed or 
composed in some one age of the world. Just ac- 
cording as it multiplies either topics or authors, it 
increases its liability to exposure by multiplying 
the points on which it may be assailed by some 
sharp-sighted antagonist. But how is it with the 
Bible ? Does it treat of but one subject; or was it 
written by one man, or at one period of time ? 

No book was ever written, embracing subjects 
of such vast extent and such endless variety. It be- 
gins at the beginning. It recites the creation of the 
earth, and the heavens, of the sun, the moon and 
the stars also, and describes the final dissolution of 
our world, when " the heavens, being on fire, shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and 
the works therein, shall be burned up." It shows 
when and how man was created in the image of his 
Creator, tells the sad story of his fall from primeval 
innocence, and spreads before us the good news of 
his redemption from sin by a Redeemer, and his final 
admission into the world of the blessed. It gives a 
code of morals so perfect as to be applicable to every 
duty and condition of man, and foretells a coming 



50 FIKST LECTURE. 

judgment, when it will be rendered to every man 
according to that which he hath done. It draws 
aside the veil and shows us the attributes of Him 
who is G-od over all, blessed for ever," and brings 
down to our view that "great mystery of godliness, 
God manifest in the flesh." At times too, stepping 
aside as it were from these more sacred doctrines, 
it gives us its teachings respecting the physical 
laws which sustain and govern the material world ; 
it shows us the frame work of a civil government, 
which equally sustains the authority of rulers and se- 
cures the rights of the ruled ; and it recites the his- 
tories of nations in their rise and fall, often making 
us familiar with events of such remote antiquity 
that no record of them is to be found except in its 
rich and diversified revelations. There is indeed no 
department or branch of valuable knowledge upon 
which it does not touch, with which it is not directly 
or indirectly connected. It comprehends things past 
present and to come, visible and invisible, temporal 
and eternal. And then 

Look also at its numerous authors and the va- 
rious circumstances and ages of the world in which 
they wrote. "It is a book which nearly fifty 



FIRST LECTURE. 51 

writers of every degree of cultivation and every 
condition of life, and living through the long course 
of fifteen hundred years, have contributed to pro- 
duce. It is a book which was written in the centre 
of Asia, in the sands of Arabia, in the deserts of 
Judea, in the courts of the temple of the Jews, in 
the schools of the prophets at Bethel and Jericho, 
in the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, on the idola- 
trous banks of Chebar, and finally in the then 
centre of western civilization, in the midst of the 
Jews and of their ignorance, in the midst of Poly- 
theism and its idols, as also in the bosom of Pan- 
theism and its sad Dhilosophy. It is a book whose 
first writer had been forty years a pupil of the 
magicians of Egypt, in whose opinion the sun and 
stars were endowed with intelligence, reacting on 
the elements and governing the world, by a per- 
petual effluvium ; and whose last writer was a 
fisherman from the sea of Tiberias, called from his 
net to be an inspired Apostle." 

Now, with all these facilities for exposing the 
falsehood of a book, arising from the number and 
rariety of its subjects and authors, what deception 
or deviation from truth have the most able adver- 



52 FIRST LECTURE. 

saries detected in the Bible ? Let them point out 
if they can, a single instance of discrepancy or con- 
tradiction, a single violation of the unity and har- 
mony that should run throughout the whole, as a 
constantly brightening revelation of God's holy pur- 
pose to save guilty men through the redemption 
that is in Christ Jesus. It belongs to the human 
mind, that when allowed to act according to its 
ordinary laws, it will invariably imbibe views and 
tendencies from the habits of the age and the na- 
tion to which it belongs. Eut with the inspired 
writers of the Bible, it was directly the reverse.' It 
matters not whether it was Moses, " learned in all 
the wisdom of Egypt," and a daily witness of the 
various idolatries interwoven with the character of 
the people ; whenever he takes his pen to write for 
the Bible, his mind becomes clarified and elevated 
above all these superstitious delusions ; not a trace 
of respect for Osiris, or Isis, or other divinities of 
Egypt, appears in his pages ; while all honor and 
worship are rendered to Jehovah, the covenant God 
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, offering life and for- 
giveness to men through a Messiah yet to come. It 
matters not whether it be Paul, " brought up at the 



FIRST LECTUEE. 53 

feet of Gamaliel, "a Pharisee, zealous for the tradi- 
tions of the elders, and proud in the righteousness 
of a law by which he counts himself blameless; 
when he writes for the Bible, his Pharisaism and 
pride have disappeared, while Christ and the cross, 
as foreshadowed and foretold by Moses and the 
Prophets, become the all and in all of which he 
would speak, and in which he would have the 
world believe. In like manner we might speak of 
all the inspired writers. Whatever may have been 
the error or idolatry prevailing in their day, not 
a trace of it is to be found mingled with the pure 
truth that comes from their pens to be embalmed 
in this Holy Bible. Its ever brightening pages come 
down to us through generation after generation, 
untainted and untarnished, like the beams of the 
rising sun breaking through the mists and vapors 
of the morning, touching them only to dispel them, 
and then to burst forth in its own native splendor. 

And while we find the Bible thus free from 
the delusions of former ages, see also how it har- 
monizes with the best discoveries of Philosophy in 
later days. If we examine the writings of the 
wisest among uninspired men on questions of 



54 FIRST LECTURE. 

Science, we find that the theories of yesterday have 
been exploded by the discoveries of to-day ; and 
that the Philosophers of past generations are conti- 
nually shown to be at war not only with each other, 
but also with truth, as it becomes better known. 
But here is the Bible, the oldest book that was ever 
written, in comparison with which every other is 
modern ; it tells us of the heavens, the sun, moon 
and stars ; of the earth and the sea, and all that in 
them is ; of their origin and the laws that govern 
them and bind them together into a beautiful whole. 
It placed its teachings respecting these subjects on 
record thousands of years ago, when Astronomy 
was more of a dream than a Science, when Geo- 
logy, Physiology, and Chemistry, were words and 
things unknown ; and yet, notwithstanding all that 
Astronomy has since done to make us familiar with 
the countless orbs of heaven; notwithstanding all 
that Geology has done to extract from the bowels 
of the earth the remains of worlds which have 
existed before man was created; notwithstanding 
all that Physiology has done to reveal the laws of 
life; notwithstanding all that Chemistry has done 
to analyse matter, we challenge infidelity to pro- 



FIRST LECTURE. 55 

duce a single principle, which has been discovered 
and established, in this wide range of Science, and 
which stands in conflict with any truth or fact known 
to be contained in the sacred Volume. Indeed, as 
we hope to show in the progress of the work we 
have prescribed to ourselves, so far is the Bible 
from having anything to apprehend from the in- 
vestigations of Science, that it invites her to proceed 
with diligence in her appropriate task ; and while 
it cautions her not to dishonor her own name by 
theories that are crude and ephemeral, it asks her 
to hasten forward with her richest stores of dis- 
covery, that it may use them to strengthen its own 
claims on the faith of mankind, by showing that 
when the volume of nature is most widely unfolded, 
and is placed side by side with the volume of the 
gospel, they appear like twin stars, combining to 
shed increased light on the otherwise dark world 
beneath them. 

With this view of the subject before us, we will 
ask infidelity to account for such an unexampled, 
unresembled exemption from error, for this immacu- 
late accuracy of the Bible — nothing from beginning 
to end of the Book, altered or erased, or needing 



56 FIEST LECTURE. 

alteration or erasure to make its parts harmonize 
with each other, to free its pages from the pre- 
judices or delusions of the age or the land in which 
they were written ; or to "bring its facts and its doc- 
trines into harmony with the ever-widening dis- 
coveries of Science and Philosophy? We have an 
explanation, if we admit that the Bihle needs to 
undergo no emendations or changes, "because how- 
ever varied as to their condition in life, their attain- 
ments of mind, or the age in which they lived, 
were the men whose pens contributed to produce 
the sacred volume, they were all inspired, were 
moved and controlled in their holy work by that 
Omniscient One " who seeth the end from the he- 
ginning; neither is there any creature that is not 
manifest in his sight, hut unto whose eyes all things 
are naked and open." This solves the case, and 
there is no other solution which is either just or 
rational. 

Let me add a word more, which I trust many, 
if not all before me will rightly appreciate. If such 
be the care and the wisdom with which the Most 
High God has prepared his Word ; and if such be 
the care and vigilance with which he has preserved 



FIRST LECTURE. 57 

it; how and in what spirit ought we to regard it? 
" The words of the Lord are pure words ; as silver 
tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times." 
Do we value them and honor them according to 
their worth? I appeal to the generous of heart, 
who shrink from the imputation of ingratitude as 
a stain on their names and a poison to their own 
peace. Can you bring yourselves to treat lightly 
a book which your Creator commends to your faith 
by stamping on its every page the broad seal of 
Heaven, by preserving it through all time with the 
wakefulness of an eye that never slumbers nor 
sleeps, and which he puts into your hands to mark 
out the pathway which leads you to heaven? I 
appeal to men of enlightened minds, to the lovers 
of truth and knowledge. Can you find a book in 
which the veins of wisdom run so rich and deep, 
in which the lore of former ages is so carefully em- 
balmed, and the germ of all the later acquisitions 
of the human mind is seen rising so brightly and 
constantly to the eye of every reader? And lastly, 
I refer to th?,t condition of our race in which we 
all share; share too 'argely; I appeal to all who 
have sins to be forgiven; who are offenders against 



58 FIEST LECTURE. 

a righteous G-od; tell me, sinful men; if we shut 
up this Bible, where is your hope? If there is no 
help for you here, neither earth nor heaven contains 
it. In all the wide universe of God there is neither 
truth nor reality left to guide you in life or support 
you in death, and you are lost, lost forever. 



Causes of Infidelity among Men of Learning. 



John iii. 19, 20. 
"And this is the condemnation, that light is 
come into the world, and men loved darkness rather 
than light, because their deeds were evil. For every 
one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh 
to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved" 

In our previous discourse we have called your 
attention to the fact that men of learning are some- 
times found in the ranks of infidelity, and we have 
aimed to do full justice to their literary acquire- 
ments. We are hereafter to show that if the question 
respecting the inspiration of the Bible is to be 
settled by the authority of names renowned for 
literature in all its branches, the friends and ad- 
vocates of the holy volume so far outweigh its ad- 
versaries as to put an end to controversy on the 
subject. But before we bring into view this splen- 



60 SECOND LECTUEE. 

did array, armed with the panoply of truth, there 
is an important inquiry which it may he well to 
answer. Admitting that men of learning, who are 
on the side of infidelity, are comparatively few, 
it may he asked, How are we to account for their 
avowed unbelief ? Was it the fruit of their learn- 
ing, or did it spring from a very different and less 
creditahle source? 

In answer I might call up one of their own 
number, and refer you to his testimony. The his- 
tory of John, Earl of Rochester, is well known. He 
was an infidel to whom his friends often pointed 
as a star of no common "brilliancy. His courage 
was even heroic, showing a spirit not to he in- 
fluenced hy any cowardly dread of death. But in 
his later days, when cool reflection came and con- 
science was allowed to speak out, wishing to undo 
ihe evil he had done hy his profane scoffs against 
\ eligion, he often laid his hand upon the Eihle and 
declared / "A had heart, a had heart is the great 
ohjection against this Holy Book;" and most care- 
fully did he provide for having the recantation of 
liis infidelity authenticated, as the honest and de- 
liberate act of a dying man. We have an account 



SECOND LECTURE. 61 

of the change which passed upon him, written by 
the venerable Burnet, of which Dr. Johnson has 
remarked that " The critic ought to read it for its- 
excellence, the philosopher for its arguments, and 
the saint for its piety." 

"We believe the testimony of the converted Ro- 
chester to he true. It is only expressing, in other 
words, what our Lord teaches in the text when he 
says that "light is come into the world, and men 
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds 
were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the 
light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds 
should be reproved." We believe that in all cases 
infidelity has its rise and progress from a bad heart, 
not from a clear head ; from enmity, not from argu- 
ment against that which the Bible reveals ; and 
when it appears among the learned, we believe that 
so far from showing enlargement and liberality of 
mind, it betrays what we may denominate, in the 
mildest language adapted to the case, a manifest 
want of sincerity and honesty in the pursuit of truth. 

This is a serious accusation. It should not be 

lightly made, especially against men who have 

built up for themselves a high name in the world 

4 



62 SECOND LECTURE. 

of letters. It should not be allowed to rest on 

evidence in the least equivocal or inconclusive. 

The proofs should he irrefragable and obvious to 

every candid judge; and such is the proof we have 

to offer. It is taken mainly from the confessions 

made by the accused themselves. "Out of thine 

own mouth will I judge thee," said his Lord to 

the wicked servant who had misused his talent : 

and this shall be our rule of judgment against men 

who have perverted splendid talents and great 

acquirements to discredit the Bible and dishonor 

its divine Author. 
I 

In prosecuting the subject, I know not what 
names can be more suitably brought forward in 
this connection than those to which I have already 
referred, as Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire and Gibbon. 
There can be no doubt as to the influence and posi- 
tion of these men in the ranks of infidelity. Their 
spirit was not confined to themselves. Their whole 
class or sect was imbued with it ; and what is true 
of them, may be expected to hold true of those who 
glory in being their followers. Accordingly, it is 
to such men that I will chiefly refer in discussing 
the point now before us. 



SECOND LECTURE. 63 

Whether happily or unhappily for their own 
good name, we will not say ; but happily for the 
cause they assailed, the Memoirs of these leading 
infidels haye been placed before the public eye; 
prepared too for our perusal by no unfriendly hands, 
but on the contrary, either by the men themselves, 
or by their admirers, who would be inclined to "ex- 
tenuate" rather than "set down aught in malice." 
AVe have here not only the leading events of their 
lives, showing how surrounding circumstances may 
have influenced their opinions and feelings, but 
we have also their correspondence and conversa- 
tions with friends to whom they communicated 
their sentiments unreservedly and fully. There is 
no species of history more instructive and important 
than such faithful portraitures of distinguished 
men, whether friends or enemies of truth and 
righteousness. It is when we see them in their un- 
guarded moments, and in the free interchange of 
thought with bosom friends, that the secret springs 
of action are developed, and the heart becomes so 
unveiled as to show, not only what they have done, 
but why they have done it ; not only what they 
have believed, but why they have believed it. 



64 SECOND LECTUKE . 

From such evidence, and from the manner in 
which they have conducted their public assaults on 
Christianity, we shall draw our proof that the pre 
vailing causes of infidelity among men of learning 
are to be found, as we have said, in a want of 
candor and honesty in the pursuit of truth and a 
blinding hatred of the truth itself. 

They claim that they are governed in their 
judgment on all questions by the principles of a 
sound and enlightened philosophy. Eut we find 
that they are not faithfu] or honest in their in- 
quiries respecting the truth of the Eible, considered 
simply as a subject of philosophical investigation. 

It is at once both the dictate of justice, and 
essential to sound reasoning, that before we venture 
to form an opinion of a book which professes to 
treat of high and important subjects, we should at 
least give it a careful reading. "What, for instance, 
would Hume or Gibbon have said concerning a 
critic who should have pronounced either of their 
Histories to be a mass of fictions, or a string of 
crude and awkward blunders, at the same time con- 
fessing he had never read the work, or at most, had 
looked into it but partially and superficially? Or, 



SECOND LECTURE. 65 

how would an objector be received, who should 
represent the time honored works of Newton or 
Locke as a confused collection of dangerous dog- 
mas or incomprehensible mysteries; when at the 
same time he should confess that he had never 
carefully perused them ? Every right-minded man 
would cry down such opinions, as equally worth- 
less and arrogant ; and would frown on the rashness 
and presumption that dared to pronounce judgment 
on the labors of such authors, without having 
taken every pains to understand them. This pre- 
sumption too would be considered wicked and wild 
just in proportion as the subjects under considera- 
tion were of high importance, and the authors had 
been long honored and trusted by many of the wise 
and the good. 

Now here is our Bible, which brings before us 
subjects of immense importance to man, both here 
and hereafter; and which, as all must admit, has 
commanded the careful study and full belief of 
many among the greatest and best of men in every 
age. Is it philosophy, any more than it is justice 
or wisdom, that any one shall pronounce the book 
unworthy of his faith until he has carefully read 



66 SECOND LECTURE. 

and examined it ? And have infidels done so before 
they gave judgment against it ? You shall hear 
from themselves : 

Hume confessed that he had never read the 
Bible after he had grown to mature manhood. This 
fact was notorious among his cotemporaries. Dr. 
Johnson, in conversation with several literary 
friends, once observed, in his usual direct and un- 
equivocal manner, that no honest man could be a 
Deist, because no man could be so after a fair ex- 
amination of the truths of Christianity. When the 
name of Hume was mentioned to him as an excep- 
tion to his remark; he replied, "No sir, Hume once 
owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, 
that he had never read even the New Testament 
with attention." 

Gibbon lets us know that the amount of his 
critical reading, when finally making up his mind 
respecting the truth of the Scriptures, embraced 
only the Gospel of John, and one chapter in the 
Gospel of Luke. Did the large measure of Divine 
unction which is fourfd in the writings of the dis- 
ciple whom Jesus loved, prove so offensive to a 
mind like Gibbon's, that he could not persuade 



SECOND LECTURE. 67 

himself to go farther ? Or, was it his deliberate de- 
sign to put contempt on the Sacred Volume, by 
placing his slight attention to its contents in con- 
trast with the careful study with which he claims 
to haye weighed the merits of other books ? 

Ha] ley the astronomer was deeply tinged with 
Infidelity. On a certain occasion he avowed his 
scepticism in the presence of Sir Isaac Newton ; 
when that venerable man turned to him, saying, 
" Sir, you have never studied these subjects, and I 
have. Do not disgrace yourself as a philosopher by 
presuming to judge on questions you have never 
examined." Halley felt himself compelled to admit 
that the reproof was deserved. 

"We will add another example taken from a well 
authenticated incident in the life of Dr. Benjamin 
Franklin. "We are told that during his residence in 
Paris he was invited to a company embracing 
many of the courtiers, and of the distinguished 
men who signalized the age in which they lived by 
their learning and their scepticism. According to 
their custom, in a free and promiscuous conversa- 
tion, Christianity was the great topic, and the Bi- 
ble was treated with unsparing severity. Growing 



68 SECOND LECTURE. 

warmer, and more profane in their comments, one 
of the company attracted universal attention by as- 
serting, with great confidence, that the Bible was 
not only a piece of gross deception, but totally 
devoid of literary merit. With the exception of 
Franklin, the entire company seemed to give a 
hearty assent to the sentiment. Being at the time 
a general favorite, his companions were disquieted 
by even a tacit reproof from a man of his might 
and influence. They all appealed to him for his 
opinion. He replied, in his own peculiar manner, 
that he was hardly prepared to give them a suita- 
ble answer, as his mind had been running on the 
merits of a book which he thought of rare excel- 
lence, and which he had happened to find in one of 
the Paris bookstores ; and as they had made allusion 
to the literary character of the Bible, perhaps it 
might interest them to compare the merits of his 
new prize with that old volume. If so, he would 
read them a few sentences. All were eager to have 
him proceed, and give them something from his 
rare book. He then opened it, and with much 
gravity of manner, and propriety of utterance, read 
to them the words — -"God came from Teman, and 



SECOND LECTURE. 69 

the Holy One from Mount Paran, His glory cover- 
ed the Heavens, and the earth was full of his 
praise. His hrightness was as the light. He had horns 
coming out of His hands, and there was the hiding 
of His power. He stood and measured the earth; 
He heheld and drove asunder the nations. The 
everlasting mountains were scattered ; the perpetual 
hills did bow. His ways are everlasting." The few 
sentences made a deep impression. The admiring" 
listeners pronounced them superior to anything they 
had heard or read; and that nothing could surpass 
them in grandeur and sublimity. They all wished 
to know what was the name of this new work, the 
name of its author, and whether this was a speci- 
men of its merits? Certainly, gentlemen, said Dr. 
Franklin, smiling at his triumph, my book is full 
of such passages ; It is no other than your good-for- 
nothing Bible. I have read, to you a short para- 
graph from the prayer of the prophet Habakkuk. 

Such are the men who assume to themselves 
the right to sit in judgment on the truth of the 
Bible ; men who have never examined the book so 
as to know what it contains, and yet profess to re- 
ject it as the result of philosophical investigation. 



70 SECOND LECTURE. 

Take another proof of their want of fairness in 
treating the question. "Whatever may be affirmed 
or denied of Christianity, it is certainly a serious 
subject. It speaks of matters, that are of most 
solemn import ; that no rational man should touch 
or even approach but with a grave and reverential 
spirit. It teaches the fall of man from a state of 
innocence and happiness, into a state of sin and 
suffering. It professes to show the compassion of 
God in saving men, and tells us that although He is 
"the High and Holy One who inhabiteth Eternity" 
he " so loved the world, that he gave his only begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever belie veth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life." Is this matter 
for jesting? Is it fitting or rational to discuss it 
with sarcasms and scoffing? Does it comport with 
a sound philosophy to contemplate or treat it in this 
way? And yet no one can deny that these are the 
weapons which we find in greatest abundance 
in the hands of known infidels. It is only at 
times that we have the opportunity of encountering 
them in the field of logical argument or sober dis- 
cussion ; and when plea after plea for their scepti- 
cism is shown to be weak and worthless, instead of 



SECOND LECTUKE. 71 

yielding with the candor and frankness of a manly 
spirit, they still claim to be unconquered, because 
they can utter the spiteful sarcasm or the con- 
temptuous sneer. Nor do they always rest satisfied 
till they have gone down in their course to the low 
depths of yulgar scurrility. "When Voltaire spoke 
of the only begotten Son of G-od, the Saviour of the 
world, a usual exclamation with him was "Ecrasez 
1'infame" — " Crush the wretch," and the blasphemy 
was so often repeated as to become one of his house- 
hold words. In this spirit of low abuse he had fol- 
lowers too, among those who stood high in his 
nation, and who may perhaps be said to have gone 
beyond their leader. When the rulers of France 
rose up " against the Lord and against his anoint- 
ed " during the reign of terror and impiety which 
swept over the land like a whirlwind, they devised 
and established a Calendar which was a singular 
compound of blasphemy, pedantry and vulgarity. 
Desirous of obliterating every feature or material of 
Christianity which has long been interwoven with 
the Calendar of civilized nations, they changed 
both the designation and beginning of the year, the 
duration of the months and weeks ; and to render 



72 SECOND LECTURE. 

the revolution in the calculations of time as radical 
as in every thing else, each day of the year was 
distinguished by a separate title of its own, the no- 
menclature being generally taken from the produc- 
tions of agriculture, or from domestic animals. One 
day was denominated from the apple, another from 
the olive ; another from the horse, another from the 
ox. But when the Convention came to assign a 
distinct name to Christmas, the 25th of December, 
on which it has been generally believed that Christ 
was bora, this day is deliberately denominated the 
day of the Dog ! To this low point of blasphemous 
scurrility, so revolting to every sense of decency and 
piety, could the leading minds of the nation descend, 
when steeped in the poison of Infidelity. 

Assaults like these, whether in coarse abuse, 
or more polished witticisms, may draw forth the 
sigh of pity and sorrow, but they are not to be met 
by a reply in kind from those who would obey 
their Master's will. The christian advocate of the 
Holy Bible should view himself as the disciple of 
Him who has commanded us not to render "railing 
for railing; but contrariwise, blessing, knowing 
that we are hereunto called, that we should inherit 



SECOND LECTUEE. 73 

a blessing." Infidels are always safe from pursuit 
when they betake themselves to the path of the 
scoffer. It would be alike useless and unbecoming 
to follow them. "Who can refute a sneer?" has 
been wisely remarked by the judicious Paley, 
when speaking of the irreverent and sarcastic at- 
tacks of Gribbon on the Christian faith. 

Let us take another view of the unfairness and 
dishonesty to which we refer. We are now meet- 
ing our infidel opposers as philosophers, the name 
in which they are constantly glorying. But true 
philosophy, when tracing effects to their causes, will 
be careful to distinguish the rule from the ex- 
ception, and the exception from the rule; to deter- 
mine between the legitimate and the spurious, 
between natural results and those which are ano- 
malous and unnatural. " The tree is known by its 
fruits," is a sound principle in science, and a car- 
dinal doctrine in theology. It is common sense, it 
is general experience. 

We ask for the application of this rule in form- 
ing a judgment on the practical results, the natu- 
ral tendencies of Christianity. We ask that the 
tree should be judged by its fruits. We ask that 



74 SECOND LECTURE. 

the consequences which can be proved to flow 
from Christianity as the legitimate fruit of the 
system, should be distinguished from those which 
have no true alliance with her teachings or her 
influences. But this is just what the infidel refuses 
to do. He exhibits the exception as the rule. As 
if loving to violate truth and right, he holds up 
the decayed apple as the only product of the tree, 
and overlooks the rich and plenteous fruit which 
meets the eves of every one who has the will to 
see it and to taste it. If he finds among christians 
an example of unhappiness or depression of spirit 
he imputes to Christianity the misery and gloom 
which it was sent to remove and dispel. This in- 
justice and impiety have at times exposed the in- 
fidel to mortifying chastisement. "I never saw a 
religious man who was not melancholy," said 
Hume to Bishop Home ; to which the excellent 
man replied, "That, sir, may be very true ; for it 
is enough to make any one melancholy who meets 
with Mr. Hume, and thinks of how he is pervert- 
ing his best talents to rail against the G-od who 
made him." Would such men judge wisely and 
justly respecting the influence of our religion in 



SECOND LECTURE. 75 

removing unhappiness and disquietude front the 
heart, let them come with us where Christianity- 
acts itself out most freely ; let them come into our 
assemblies of worship, and listen to our songs of 
praise to Iiim who has redeemed us by His blood ; 
and there learn whether our religion makes us 
gloomy. Or if it would be too much for them to 
go with us into a house of worship, let them go 
with us into the wide fields of creation, where the 
sun shines to give life and light to the world be- 
neath him, where the flowers perfume the air that 
we may breathe it ; and let us see who derives most 
enjoyment from the bright scene before us; whether 
the Christian who can say "My Father made them 
all," and made them for my happiness as I pass 
through this world to a better; or the infidel who 
sees in this living panorama of Heaven's goodness 
only the working of some hidden mechanism of 
nature, blindly producing its usual round of results. 

Equal injustice is done to Christianity in re- 
ference to her influence on the peace and prospe- 
rity of communities and nations. We proclaim it 
as the natural fruit of her teachings and her spirit, 
that she would bind men together in one family 



76 SECOND LECTURE. 

of universal brotherhood, that she would render 
the strong the protectors, not the oppressors of the 
weak, that she would subdue the bitter passions 
of hatred and envy, and drive them from the bo- 
soms and the abodes of men. And we have ample 
right to declare that such blessings are the native 
fruits of Christianity ; a right arising from her 
doctrines, from her precepts, and from what she is 
known to have done when allowed to exercise her 
sway. Her first great command is, " Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God," and her " second is like 
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
She was ushered into the world with the procla- 
mation from the skies, " Glory to God in the 
highest, on earth peace and goodwill to men." 
Her own beautiful description of the mission she 
came to fulfil in subduing evil and enmity among 
men is in the words, "They shall beat their swords 
into ploughshares and their spears into pruning 
hooks, neither shall they learn war any more;" 
" the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the 
leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf, and 
the young lion and the fatling together, and a little 
child shall lead them — and the sucking child 



SECOND LECTURE. 77 

shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned 
child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. 
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain." And we claim that she has abundantly 
fulfilled these glowing predictions, that she has 
actually wrought these wonders of loving kindness 
and peace wherever we find her disciples hearing 
her name and breathing her spirit. In her earliest 
dgys, and when she first spread abroad her domin- 
ion through the world, it was the confession of her 
enemies, "Behold how these Christians love one 
another." 

But how have such historians as Hume, Vol- 
taire and G-ibbon described her; described her in 
her influence upon the peace, the harmony and the 
benevolence of men and of nations? Their unjust 
accusations, their revolting caricatures are but too 
well known and read of all men. The followers 
of the Redeemer who came to create peace, peace 
to him that is afar off and to him that is near, 
are habitually described as fanatics and incen- 
diaries who make war on the kindest amenities of 
human life, and have drenched the earth with 

blood to spread a dogma or a sect. Nero set fire to 

5 



78 SECOND LECTURE. 

Rome, and burnt to ashes the fairest portions of 
the city in order to gratify his fiendish love of 
cruelty and wickedness; and although Christians 
were among the foremost in their efforts to stay 
the progress of the devouring element, he accused 
them of being the incendiaries, and put them to 
death in tens of thousands for the crime falsely 
laid to their charge. His conduct is a striking illus- 
tration of the treatment Christianity has received 
from infidel historians. Crimes which she con- 
dems, evils which she was sent into the world to 
prevent or to cure, have been charged to her ac- 
count, until she has been made responsible for 
atrocities not less degrading and repulsive than 
ever stained the pages of Pagan idolatry or Maho- 
medan delusion. Had infidels carried the same 
mode of argument into questions of science and 
letters which they have employed against the 
christian religion, they would have been treated 
with derision and scorn. 

Farther still : while they have thus disregarded 
the principles of justice and the rules of sound 
reasoning, we have evidence that in their profes- 
sions of infidelity, they also violate their own con- 



SECOND LECTURE. 79 

victions of truth. How was it with Hume? He 
was pleased to be, known as the correspondent of 
distinguished divines. In a letter from Dr. Blair it 
appears that the subject of his infidelity had been 
introduced, and we would hope with becoming pro- 
testations against it. In his reply he says "I have 
long since dpne with inquiries on these subjects and 
am become incapable of instruction. I beg that in 
time to come they may be forborne between us." 
And yet, anxious as he was to exclude these sub- 
jects from his thoughts, at times they forced them 
selves upon him, and compelled him to acknowledge 
his conviction of their importance. I do not now 
refer to the evidence of it seen in his uneasy 
and confused expression of countenance, indicating 
something more than mortified vanity, whenever he 
heard the names of such men as Campbell and 
Beattie, Warburton and Hurd, who had exposed his 
sophistries and castigated his impieties. But I 
quote confessions which came from his own lips. 

Sorrow, especially at the death of friends and 
near relatives will often, at least for the tim^, so 
drive vanity and pride from the heart, that it will 
speak out its real feelings with sincerity. Con- 



80 SECOND LECTURE. 

science then gains a sway which it may not have 
possessed in the hour of gladness and self-con- 
fidence. Hume so felt it notwithstanding his well- 
known ambition to be the stoical philosopher. 
When the news of his mother's death reached him, 
whether owing to compunction for efforts he had 
made to deprive her of her faith in the G-ospel, or 
to some other cause, he was plunged into the deep- 
est affliction. The friend who witnessed it, and 
who wished both to console and benefit him, took 
occasion to say "You owe this uncommon grief to 
your having thrown off the principles of religion : 
for if you had not, you would have been consoled 
by the firm belief that the good lady, who was 
not only the best of mothers, but the most pious 
of Christians, is happy in the realm of the just." 
To which the sorrowing infidel replied, "Though I 
throw out my speculations to entertain the learned 
and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do 
not think so differently from the rest of mankind 
as you imagine." By his own showing then, Hume's 
hypocrisy was as reckless as it was deliberate and 
profane; and the confession which grief wrung from 
him, leaves his name without the slightest claim to 



SECOND LECTURE. 81 

respect from any man who values truth and sincerity 
in things that are sacred. "As a madman who 
casteth fire-brands, arrows and death, so is the 
man that deceive th his neighbor, and saith, Am 
not I in sport?" The incident is perhaps the more 
impressive, as it has been carefully spread before 
the public by one of his relatives in order to save 
his name from a still worse imputation. 

As another evidence of the moral turpitude 
to which he had reduced himself when treating the 
subject of religion, we may refer to an event which 
many of his admirers have admitted to be a cause 
of embarrassment and shame. The mind of a young 

clergyman, Mr. V , belonging to the church of 

England, had become perverted by a perusal of 
Hume's writings. He felt that having lost his be- 
lief in the truth of Christianity, he could not, as a 
man of candor and truth, continue to preach its 
doctrines. In this dilemma he applied to one 'of 
Hume's friends, who referred the case to Hume him- 
self, saying "You are somewhat bound to give him 
your best advice. Y is a very good-natured, ho- 
nest, sensible fellow, without any fortune. He seems 
rather inclined not to be a clergyman ; but you know 



82 SECOND LECTURE. 

as well and better than I do how difficult it is to 
get any tolerable civil employment. If you should 
determine on his being a clergyman, throw in some- 
thing consolatory on his being obliged to renounce 
white stockings the rest of his life." 

Hume replied " Let Mr V , adhere to the ec- 
clesiastical profession ; for civil employment for men 
of letters can scarcely be found." And he adds, as 
his reason for giving this advice, "It is putting too 
great a respect on the vulgar, and on their supersti- 
tions, to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to 
them. Did ever one make it a point of honor to 
speak truth to children or madmen? If the thing 
were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell 
him, that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation 
of Xenophon, advised every one to worship the 
Gods— vo[ig) TtoTiEoig. I wish it were still in my 
power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The 
common duties of society usually require it ; and 
the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more 
to an innocent .dissimulation, or rather simulation, 
without which it is impossible to pass through the 
world." 

"We are not told whether the young man follow- 



SECOND LECTURE. 83 

ed the iniquitous advice to spend a life-time of de- 
ception as a minister in the church of God. But 
we would fondly hope that, however unscrupulous 
may have heen trie master who gave it, it involved 
too gross a violation of truth and of fidelity to his 
own conscience for the disciple to follow it. 

If this was the fit place for the demonstration, 
we might go on and spread before you convincing 
proofs of Hume's dishonesty in his far-famed "His- 
tory of England." Hostility to religion, admiration 
of royal prerogative, and opposition to the rights 
of the people, were predominant feelings with him 
when he prepared that able and insidious work; 
and under the searching investigations of Brodie 
and others, he stands convicted of having wilfully 
garbled and mutilated facts of essential importance 
in order to answer his unworthy ends. 

Erom this painful exhibition of insincerity 
and dishonesty in one whom many have long de- 
lighted to honor, let us turn to another and a very 
different man, though both noted for their Infidelity. 
Let us hear the voluntary and deliberate confession 
of Rousseau, respecting whom we are told bv a 
poet too nearly allied to him in spirit : 



84 



SECOND LECTUEE. 



" His life was one long war with self-sought foes, 

" Or friends by him self-banished ; for his mind 

"Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose, 

" For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind 

" 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind J 

" And from him came, 
"As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore, 
" Those oracles which set the world in flame ; 
"Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more." 

This " self torturing sophist " never could so 
utterly destroy his innate sense of the beautiful or 
the grand as not to admire it whether he saw it in 
the opening flower, the lofty mountain, or the page 
of history though it might he the page of inspira- 
tion. "We cite his confession the more willingly he- 
cause of the care which he has himself taken to 
place it on record. In his " Emilius " or " Treatise 
of Education," perhaps the least exceptionable of 
all his works, speaking as if to a son or a young 
friend whom he would aim to instruct, he gives this 
remarkable and impressive testimony to the truth 
and excellence of Christianity and to the divinity 
of its author. 

"I will confess to you, that the majesty of the 
Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity 
of the gospel hath its influence on my heart. Peruse 



/ 



SECOND LECTURE. 85 

the works of our philosophers with all their pomp 
of diction ; how mean, how contemptible are they, 
compared with the . Scripture ! Is it possible that a 
book at once so simple and sublime should be mere- 
ly the work of man? Is it possible that the sacred 
personage, whose history it contains, should be him- 
self a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the 
air of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? "What 
sweetness, what purity in his manners ! "What an 
affecting gracefulness in his delivery ! "What sub- 
limity in his maxims ! "What profound wisdom in 
his discourses ! What presence of mind, what sub- 
tilty, what truth in his replies ! How great the com- 
mand oyer his passions ! Where is the man, where 
the philosopher, who could so live and so die, with- 
out weakness and without ostentation ? When Plato 
described his imaginary good man loaded with all 
the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest re- 
wards of virtue, he describes exactly the character 
of Jesus Christ ; the resemblance was so striking 
that all the Fathers perceived it. 

What prepossession, what blindness must it be 
to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of 
Mary ? What an infinite disproportion there is be- 



86 SECOND LECTURE. 

tween them ! Socrates, dying without pain or igno- 
miny, easily supported his character to the last; 
and if his death, however easy, had not crowned 
his life, it might have "been douhted whether 
Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more 
than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the 
theory of morals. Others, however, had before put 
them in practice : he had only to say what they had 
done, and reduce their examples to precepts. Aris- 
tides had been just, before Socrates defined justice; 
Leonidas gave up his life for his country, before 
Socrates declared patriotism to be a duty ; the Spar- 
tans were a sober people before Socrates recom- 
mended sobriety ; before he had even defined virtue, 
G-reece abounded with virtuous men. But where 
could Jesus learn, among his compatriots, that pure 
and sublime morality of which he only hath given 
us both precept and example. The greatest wisdom 
was made known amidst the most bigoted fanati- 
cism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues 
did honor to the vilest people on the earth. The 
death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with 
his friends, appears the most agreeable that could 
be wished for; that of Jesus, expiring in the midst 



SECOND LECTURE. 87 

of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, cursed by a 
whole nation, is the most horrible that could be 
feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, 
blessed indeed the weeping executioner who admi- 
nistered it : but Jesus in the midst of excruciating 
tortures prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes, 
if the life and death of Socrates are those of a sage, 
the life and death of Jesus are those of a G-od. 
Shall we suppose the evangelic history a mere fic- 
tion ? Indeed, my friend, it bears not the marks o. 
fiction; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, 
which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well at- 
tested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition 
in fact only shifts the difficulty without removing 
it. It is more inconceivable that a number of per- 
sons should agree to write such a history, than that 
one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jew- 
ish authors were incapable of the diction, and stran- 
gers to the morality contained in the Gospel; the 
marks of whose truth are so striking and inimita- 
ble that the inventor would be a more astonish- 
ing character than the hero." 

" Is Saul also among the prophets ?" might justly 
be asked in view of these sentiments coming from 



88 SECONL LECTUKE. 

the pen of the unbelieving Rousseau. No wonder 
that Voltaire, D'Alembert and other infidels of the 
day should have been so vexed and irritated with 
him for having made such an unlocked for confes- 
sion, that they had almost disowned him from their 
infidel brotherhood. He presents to us, and in a 
very striking manner, those strong arguments, taken 
from the internal evidence on behalf of the gospel, 
which no ingenuity has ever been able to refute ; 
he acknowledges that he felt their force ; and yet he 
still persisted in infidelity, and spent his subsequent 
life in efforts to malign and destroy the religion, to 
the truth of which he had borne such unequivocal, 
and as he says, such heartfelt testimony. 

Such proofs of insincerity, of deliberate violence • 
to their own convictions, as we have given from 
the lives of Hume and Rousseau, might be greatly 
multiplied ; and they throw a dark, dark shade, not 
only on Infidelity, but on the infidel himself. They 
betray a want of honesty, and a disregard of truth, 
which if practiced in the ordinary concerns of life 
would go far to banish a man from respectable so- 
ciety. It has been said of Gribbon, that he assails 
Christianity with the temper of a man who sought 



SECOND LECTURE. 89 

to resent a personal injury ; and the sentiment is 
but a fair verdict concerning infidel writers general- 
ly. They act under a bias that would exclude them 
from passing judgment on a question at issue be- 
tween man and man in a court of justice. They 
feel that they have a personal controversy with the 
Bible, and they aim to discredit it as a measure of 
self-defence and self-justification. 

" "With such a temper apparent," says the ven- 
erable Wilson, in his lectures on the subject, "I have 
a key to the secrets of their unbelief." 

"I see one writer speaking of the life and dis- 
courses of our Saviour with the ignorance and buf- 
foonery of a jester, and asserting that ridicule is the 
test of truth ; I want no one to inform me that he 
is an unbeliever. 

"I see another virtually denying all human tes- 
timony with one breath, and with another defend- 
ing suicide and apologizing for lewdness and adul- 
tery: — I do not ask if he is dissatisfied with the 
Christian evidence. 

" I see a third, after composing a work full of 
hypocrisy and deceit on the subject of religion, pub- 
lishing it to the world on the persuasion of having 



90 SECOND LECTURE. 

heard a voice from heaven. I ohserve another ex- 
plaining away the historical narrative of the Old 
Testament as a mere mystical representation of the 
signs of the zodiac. I see a late noble poet betray- 
ing, throughout his profligate writings, caprice 
and vanity, self-conceit and misanthropy, together 
with an abandonment of all moral feeling. I want 
no one to explain to me the sources of the unbelief 
of such writers. 

" I turn to our modern historians, and I mark 
their blunders in whatever relates to religion, their 
inconsistencies, their misrepresentations, the impu- 
rities which defile their pages, their vanity and self 
confidence, and the malice and spleen with which 
they pursue the followers of Christ. I ask no fur- 
ther questions. 

" I open the works of the German infidels, and 
find the index of their true temper in the follies and 
absurdities with which they are content to forsake 
all common sense in their comments on the sacred 
text, and to exhibit themselves as the gazing-stocks 
of Christendom. 

" I cast my eye on the flippancy of the Frencn 
school of irreligion, and see such entire ignorance of 



SECOND LECTURE. 91 

the simplest points of religious knowledge, suck 
gross impurities, connected with blasphemies which 
I dare not repeat ; I see such an obvious attempt 
to confound truth and falsehood on the most im- 
portant of all subjects, and such a bitterness of 
scorn, a sort of personal rancour against the Christ- 
ian religion and its Divine founder, as to betray 
most clearly the cause in which they are engaged. 
I take the confession of one of their number, and 
ask whether, in such a temper of mind, any reli- 
gious question could be soundly determined. 'I 
have consulted our philosophers, I have perused 
their books, I have examined their several opinions, 
I have found them all proud, positive and dogmati- 
cal, even in their pretended scepticism; knowing 
every thing, proving nothing, and ridiculing one 

another.'; £ If our philosophers were able to discover 

truth, which of them would interest himself about 
it ? There is not one of them, who if he could dis- 
tinguish truth from falsehood, would not prefer his 
own error to the truth that is discovered by another. 
"Where is the philosopher, who for his own glory 
would not willingly deceive the whole human 
race.' " 



02 SECOND LECTURE. 

We are aware of the show of indignant feeling 
with which we have heen told, it is not to he en- 
dured that such authors as Bolingbroke, Hume, and 
(ribbon should he charged with unfairness and dis- 
honesty in their writings. But we have the facts, 
facts which speak for themselves, and by every 
righteous tribunal they will be pronounced decisive 
in the case. It is no pleasant labor thus to unmask 
opposers. We would prefer to leave their honesty 
unimpeached, and to meet them in a fair trial upon 
the strength of their arguments. They have not 
us to blame if we go farther back. They have 
themselves invited it. They have themselves put 
on record the proofs of their insincerity and incon- 
sistency. 

We know not indeed how far men may go in 
deceiving themselves, and thus at last become less 
dishonest because so blinded in their delusions as 
to have lost the power to discriminate clearly be- 
tween truth and error. A man may so effectually 
destroy his own power of vision as to believe it to 
be dark night long after the rising sun has declared 
it to be clear day. Our Maker has made it a fixed 
law of our being that we cannot persist in abusing 



SECOND LECTUEE. 93 

or perverting any of the faculties he has given us 
without in the end destroying them. He has assur- 
ed us that when men receive not the love of truth 
that they might he saved, for this cause he sends 
them strong delusions, that they should "believe a 
lie. " There is a principle of belief implanted in 
our nature that seeks to avenge itself on the infidel 
for the wrong done to his own soul when he turns 
aside from reposing confidence in Him who is truth 
itself; and we have examples constantly occur in g 
to show that when a man has rendered himself 
sceptical as to Divine Revelation, he is often left, as 
a just punishment, to become the dupe of the most 
gross absurdities. Indeed the most gross delusions 
of unreasoning, blind superstition, have been fully 
equalled by the weak credulity of those who have 
become most deeply involved in the mazes of infi- 
delity. It was said of the notorious Yossius, who 
dishonored the name of a venerable father by his 
licentious and hardened irreligion, that he stood 
ready to believe any thing and every thing, except 
that the Bible was true ; and that his faith was 
generally strong according as the falsehood was 
glaringly absurd. 

6 



94 SECOND LECTURE. 

This discreditable weakness of mind had he- 
come so conspicuous and general among the scep- 
tics of Shafteshury's day, that notwithstanding his 
well known sympathy with them in their unbelief, 
he tells us in his " Characteristics," " For my own 
part, I have ever thought this sort of men to be in 
general more credulous, though after another man- 
ner, than the mere Vulgar. Besides what I have 
observed in conversation with men of this character, 
I can produce many anathematized authors, who, 
if they are wanting in true Israelitish faith, can 
make amends by a Chinese or Indian one. If they 
are short in Syria, or Palestine, they have their 
full measure in America or Japan. Histories of 
Incas or Iroquois, written by pirates and renegades, 
sea-captains and trusty travellers, pass for authen- 
tic records, and are canonical with the virtuosos of 
this sort. The Christian miracles may not so well 
satisfy them ; but they dwell with the highest con- 
tentment on the prodigies of Moorish and Pagan 
countries." 

Had Shaftesbury lived in a later generation he 
might have confirmed his remarks by examples seen 
in high places of power where he would scarcely 



SECOND LECTUEE. 95 

have expected to find them. Frederick of Prussia 
was anxious to be known as the great infidel of his 
time. He seems to have counted it a greater hon- 
or to be the friend and disciple of Voltaire than to 
be the conqueror of Austria. And yet, although he 
could fill Europe with the fame of his skill and 
courage as a warrior ; while he was scoffing at the 
solemn truths of Christianity, he was the trembling 
dupe of judicial astrology : and the dread of a pre- 
diction uttered by a Saxon fortune-teller, to whom 
he was led by the craving of his nature for some- 
thing to believe, so affected his mind as often to 
render him utterly unhappy and insufferably petu- 
lant and tyrannical. 

But whatever such men may have done by per- 
verseness and obduracy of heart to impair their 
powers of discriminating truth from falsehood, and 
to bring on themselves a judicial blindness respect- 
ing the word of G-od ; none of them can plead that 
they were " born blind." The innate power of con- 
science, which is given by our Creator to every in- 
telligent being, cannot be subdued except as the 
consequence of long and repeated violence ; and there 
is a self-evidencing power in the light of christian 



96 SECOND LECTURE. 

truth, like that coming from the sun in the heavens, 
which makes itself more or less known even to 
those who would turn away from it. They may 
shut up or cast away the Bible ; but they will feel 
its influence in the very atmosphere of a christian 
community. Its memorials meet them in every re- 
curring sabbath, in every house of public worship, 
in every institution which distinguishes a christian 
people from a nation of pagans : and the monitor 
within will make a response to these signs from 
heaven that meet it from without. Hume confesses 
concerning himself, as we have seen, that at the 
very time when he was giving out his lessons of 
infidelity to the world, his inmost thoughts in 
his hours of sobriety and reflection gave a very dif- 
ferent testimony. Much as he might endeavor to 
shut religion out from his mind, there were seasons 
when he felt constrained to think of it, and to 
think as other people thought, of its value to our 
world of sin and sorrow. But these convictions 
seem to have become more and more faint, accord- 
ing as they were often resisted, until finally the 
deadly stupor of infidelity gained supreme control 
of the man who had labored to cherish it. 



SECOND LECTURE. 



37 



We have no doubt there were external circum- 
stances in the lives of such leading infidels as we 
have named, which combined with depravity of 
heart to confirm them in their hostility to Chris- 
tianity, perhaps to embitter it. There were events 
in the life of Hume, which may have had this sinis- 
ter influence on his mind. Surprising as it must 
appear, after he had betrayed his infidelity, and 
when he had so degraded his own sense of right 
and wrong as to write essays vindicating suicide and 
other enormities, he twice offered himself as a can- 
didate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy. His first 
application was for the professorship in the Univer- 
sity of Edinburgh ; and when he had been rejected 
by that venerable seat of learning, as if determined 
to brave public sentiment, he afterwards applied for 
the same appointment in the University of Glasgow. 
The community were amazed at his hardihood and 
presumption in supposing that an avowed unbe- 
liever in Christianity could be chosen to teach 
morals to the youth of a christian nation. He com- 
plained that he was treated with injustice, inas- 
much as he had published volume after volume to 
which no exception could be taken, and that even 



SECOND LECTURE. 

if a few pages of reprehensible matter had escaped 
him, it was unreasonable to condemn him on ac- 
count of so small a part of what he had written. On 
one occasion when he was thus pleading his own 
cause, one of the company replied to him " Sir, you 
put me in mind of a Notary Public who having 
been condemned to be hung for forgery, lamented 
the hardship of his case ; that after having written 
many thousand inoffensive sheets, he should be 
hanged for one Hue." Happily for the cause of 
truth and of morals, the appointment was in the 
hands of those who could not be persuaded to con- 
sider either forgery or blasphemy against G-od and 
His holy word as matters of small moment ; and 
Hume was shut out from a place which he so per- 
tinaciously coveted, but so little deserved. As might 
be expected, the clergy, in discharge of their duty, 
were both earnest and indignant in resisting his 
applications ; and it is not surprising that a man of 
Hume's temperament should wish to visit on reli- 
gion itself, the resentment which he was not slow 
to avow against its ministers and advocates. 

It may well be supposed too that the minds of 
both Hume and Gibbon, especially the latter, be- 



SECOND LECTURE. 99 

came more and more estranged from Christianity by 
their intercourse with the leading savans of France. 
In their days France was one vast hot hed of impi- 
ety and infidelity, of sparkling intellect and profli- 
gate manners. It set the fashion not only in the 
world of gaiety, hut in the world of philosophy. So 
alluring did Hume find his position when he was in 
Paris, that he had a strong inclination to make it 
his home for life, notwithstanding his attachment 
to his friends in Scotland, G-ibbon's love of France 
amounted to such a passion that he preferred 
writing in the French language rather than in his 
own. His exclamation when he met with Yoltaire 
was — " Yirgilium vidi tantum ;" and to such a 
ridiculous length did he carry his desire to appear 
at home in every thing which was French, that his 
friend Mme. DuDeffand remarked, she was often 
on the point of saying to him, " Don't give yourself 
so much trouble ; you deserve the honor of "being a 
Frenchman.". It is a melancholy proof that a na- 
tion has reached the last stage of moral delinquen- 
cy, and the contagion hecomes doubly dangerous, 
when the poison of impiety strikes as deep into the 
minds of women as of men. It was remarkably so 



-00 SECOND LECTUEE. 

at this time in the French nation ; and no one can 
peruse the biographies of Hume and G-ibbon with- 
out perceiving that whenever they came out from 
the licentious and brilliant salons of Paris, they 
had fallen from bad to worse. 

Eut among the external causes of the wide- 
spread infidelity which showed itself not only in 
Hume and G-ibbon, but also in many of their co- 
temporaries, we must not fail to mention the low 
state of religion which then prevailed to a lament- 
able extent. It is a truth which cannot be too often 
repeated or too solemnly urged, that the strength of 
Christianity to " still the enemy and the avenger," 
and "put to silence the lying lips," is never so irre- 
sistible as when displayed in the purity and filial 
devotedness of Christians. "When the church "looks 
forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the 
sun," she is also "terrible as an army with ban- 
ners;" and goes forward, like her Lord, conquering 
and to conquer. If all is well within, she has 
nothing to fear from without, "though an host 
should encamp against her." But widely different 
was her condition at the time of which we speak. 
With the exception of a comparatively few redeem- 



SECOND LECTUEE. 101 

ing points, the picture was gloomy and forbidding 
throughout the wide territory which had once own- 
ed the sway of Christianity, and still claimed to 
pass under her name. In some lands she Avas dis- 
figured by superstitions that brought her worship in- 
to close affinity with the corrupt rites of Paganism; 
and in others she was enervated and depressed un- 
der the weight of cold indifference or proud un- 
meaning formalism. She had not yet felt the influ- 
ence of the burning and shining lights which have 
since arisen to restore her to herself, a-nd wake her 
up to the duty not only of repairing her own deso- 
lations, but of making the aggressive inroads on the 
kingdom of darkness which are both the index of 
her strength and the sure means of increasing it. 
""While men slept" in this deep slumber, the tares 
of impiety and infidelity were sown broadcast, es- 
pecially throughout the nations of the Old World ; 
and we must lament that among those whom we 
find sleeping at their posts, are men who were dis- 
tinguished for their official station and extensive in- 
fluence ; and yet, when weighed in the balances are 
found greatly wanting in the spirit of firmness and 
decision with which they ought to have rebuked 



102 SECOND LECTURE. 

the open enemies of the faith they were appointed 
to defend and vindicate. 

But in whatever degree external circumstances 
or the state of the times may have influenced the 
ultimate views of infidels, it is too plain to he ques- 
tioned, that their infidelity had its origin and its 
chief aliment in an "evil heart of unhelief." The 
Bible which they assailed explains their case and 
unfolds their motives, when it tells us "they loved 
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were 
evil ;" " having their understanding darkened, he- 
cause of the hardness of their heart, they became vain 
in their imaginations ;" "professing themselves to he 
wise, they became fools." And from the language 
which the Apostle here uses, describing their ambi- 
tious desires to be noted for superior wisdom, we are 
reminded, that, if among the unworthy motives 
which excited their hostility to religion there is one 
which seems to have obtained the greatest ascen- 
dancy, it is that prurient ambition for distinction in 
knowledge which was man's first sin against his 
Maker, and is frequently the last which will yield 
to the power of the Gospel. Like Simon the Magi- 
cian, the first of their race on record in modern his- 



SECOND LECTURE. 103 

tory, "giving out that himself was some great one," 
they were captivated with a desire of exhibiting 
themselves as great; great in the enlargement oi 
their views, the fearlessness of their inquiries and 
the extent of discoveries which they hoped would 
overturn the received belief of former days. 

This dangerous ambition is peculiarly the be- 
setting sin of active minds in early life. Happy for 
those who, in the formation of first opinions on great 
subjects, are under the influence of guardians and 
instructors whose sober and experienced judgment 
may avail to chasten these ardent aspirings, and 
implant in the heart that humility and becoming 
self-distrust which are the beginning of true wisdom. 
Had a wise and timely control, by some parental 
hand, been exercised over the minds of Hume and 
Gibbon, how different might have been their course 
and their influence in the world! But unhappily 
they were left to themselves at the period of life 
when the self-sufficiency, of which we speak, was 
unchecked; and they fell easy victims to the temp- 
tation of thinking more highly of themselves than 
they ought to think. Hume, while in childhood, 
lost his father, and seems to have met with no one 



104 SECOND LECTURE. 

who cautioned him against the absorbing desire to 
be known as a" discoverer in philosophy," which, 
as his friends admit, controled his tastes and pur- 
suits before he had arrived at the age of manhood. 
Gibbon's father lived to see his son growing up to 
matured years ; and yet, owing to various causes, he 
left the care of the boy to instructors who usually 
left him to take care of himself : the consequence 
was that his mind ran wild, and the ambition to 
master abstract questions became a passion with 
the lad. It is melancholy to see him, when yet in 
the greenness of his youth, grappling with subjects 
beyond his strength; and his mind becoming bent 
and distorted under burdens from which no kind 
and faithful hand came to relieve him, while no 
friendly voice was raised to rebuke the presumption 
which so overtasked his faculties. Speaking of his 
residence at Oxford as a student in Magdalen Col- 
lege, and of the entire neglect with which he was 
treated by the Professors, he tells us in his Me- 
moirs, "Prom my childhood I had been fond of 
religious disputation; nor had the elastic spring 
been totally broken by the weight of the atmos- 
phere of Oxford. The blind activity of idleness 



SECOND LECTURE. 105 

urged me to advance without armour into the dan- 
gerous mazes of controversy; and at the age of 
sixteen I bewildered myself in the errors of the 
Church of Rome." In this way his mind wearied 
itself into confirmed disease, and arrogantly con- 
ceiting that no one ought to believe what he 
could not comprehend, he threw aside one set of 
opinions after another, till he became self-school- 
ed into a scepticism that grew with his growth, 
till he rose to be one of the most dangerous foes 
which Christianity has ever encountered. 

From such a neglected soil have sprung up, in 
different ages of the world, many of what Sir 
Thomas Brown calls "the sturdy doubts and bois- 
terous objections wherewith the unhappiness of our 
knowledge too nearly acquainteth us, and which 
are to be encountered, not in a martial posture, but 
on our knees." "Keep back thy servant from pre- 
sumptuous sin," is the prayer of the man after G-od's 
own heart ; and we can scarcely conceive of any sin 
more presumptuous or offensive than the spirit of 
pride and self-sufficiency with which men have too 
often professed to inquire into the truth of G-od's 
word. The challenge is addressed to all created in- 



106 SECOND LECTURE. 

telligences, however high, whether of man or of 
angel, "Can'st thou hy searching find out God? 
can'st thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? 
It is high as heaven; what can'st thou do? deeper 
than hell ; what can'st thou know?" As a fit response 
to the overwhelming inquiry, we may well exclaim 
with Paul, "Oh the depth of the riches "both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable 
are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or 
who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first 
given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him 
again? For of him, and through him, and to him 
are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen." 
No man can be suitably prepared for learning the 
Divine "Will, or inquiring into it, till he imbibes the 
feeling portrayed in the solemn and impressive 
words of our Lord, "Verily, I say unto you, whoso- 
ever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a lit 
tie child, shall in no wise enter therein." " The se- 
cret of the Lord," says the Psalmist "is with them 
that fear him, and he will show them his covenant. 
The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek 
will he teach his way." And as this meekness, this 



SECOND LECTURE. 107 

childlike docility is the spirit befitting even the 
greatest and the wisest of men, when they would 
he made wise unto salvation; never does human 
greatness appear so ripe and attractive, as when we 
find it seated at the feet of Jesus, confessing its own 
weakness and ignorance, and asking help and wis- 
dom from Him who is the Light of the world. Few 
men have exercised so powerful a sway among the 
learned around him as Dr. Samuel Johnson. But 
notwithstanding the high renown which he gained 
for eminence in literature, he seems to have his 
highest claim to our admiration, when we hear 
him offering this prayer to God, in which we should 
all desire to join: 

"0 Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast 
graciously sent me into this world to work out my 
salvation with fear and trembling, enable me to 
drive from me all such inquiet and perplexing 
thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the prac- 
tice of those duties which thou hast required. 
When I behold the works of thy hands, give me 
grace always to remember that thy thoughts are 
not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And 
while it shall please thee to continue me in this 



108 SECOND LECTURE. 

world, where much is to be done, and little to be 
known, teach me, by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw 
my mind from unprofitable and dangerous inqui- 
ries; from difficulties vainly curious ; and doubts im- 
possible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the Kght 
which thou hast imparted: let me serve thee with 
active zeal and humble confidence; and wait with 
patient expectation for the time in which the soul 
which thou receivest, shall be satisfied with know- 
ledge. Grant this, Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake.. 
Amen." 



ma® aiswii. 

Learned Men who have embraced Christianity, 



Matthew, ii. 1, 2. 

" There came wise men from the East ; saying, 
Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we 
have seen his star in the East and are come to 
worship him." 

It is a beautiful idea of the Ancients, that the 
most venomous serpents which infest our earth are 
to be found only in those regions which abound 
with the most sovereign antidotes to their poison. 
"Whether this be true or untrue in the world of na- 
ture, it is a principle which prevades the moral 
creation. Evil always has its limits. It never can 
become either perpetual or unrestrained. It some- 
times comes to an end from having in itself the 
elements of self-combustion ; and is destroyed by a 
process resulting from its own nature. At other 

times, by its encroachments on every thing high 

7 



110 THIED 'lECTUEE. 

and holy, it awakens a resistance which overpowers 
and crushes it by the hands of those whom it had 
aimed to destroy. To both these causes it is per- 
haps owing, that the triumphs of infidelity have 
always been short, and that in the end it has met 
with overthrows so complete and decisive. But 
friends of the truth who are faithful to every trust, 
will not allow error to live until it may die out of 
its own accord, or perish by the laws of its own 
nature. However short may be its life, the evil fruit 
which would spring from it, might last forever ; 
and accordingly, as you will see from what we are 
now to set before you, wherever infidelity has sown 
its seeds ; like the fabled teeth of the dragon, they 
have started up into armed men ; men who could not 
be impelled to turn their weapons against each other, 
but men armed in the panoply of truth, to make 
war in its defence and for its wider dominion. 

"We cannot be said, in our former Lecture on the 
subject, to have done injustice to infidelity by an 
unfair exhibition of the force it can array in its de- 
fence. "We have not raked up from the kennel the 
low and debased who are found on its side: nor 
have we called forth from the dens of pollution, the 



THIRD LECTURE. Ill 

scurrilous, noisy and reckless revilers of Chris- 
tianity, who station themselves under the infidel 
banner. "We have passed by this motley and loath- 
some host in silence. "We have presented to view 
only the chosen and acknowledged leaders of in- 
fidelity, its ablest and most distinguished advo- 
cates ; and in our view of their learning and their 
lives, their scepticism and its causes, we have aimed 
to give them full credit for whatever they may 
claim, either in learning or in character. But hav- 
ing thus surveyed the strength of those who have 
set themselves against us, let us now turn to the 
ranks of the learned, who appear under a different 
banner and animated by a different spirit. Their 
banner is the cross, with its motto — " In hoc vin- 
ces;" and their spirit, love to the truth and to Him 
who has revealed it for the salvation of a lost world. 

Let me here observe, that in the array of names 
which I am about to set before you, for the sake of 
argument, I will not take into the account any of 
those who have been known as ministers of the 
G-ospel, however they may have been distinguished 
for their scholarship and learning. And yet let me 
not be understood to admit, that as a body the 



112 THIRD LECTURE. 

clergy are to be held of small moment to the cause 
of letters and science. I cannot he accused of un- 
due partiality for my own profession, when I claim, 
that if the learning of the clergy were to he swept 
away from the mass of human knowledge, it would 
leave a chasm, " a great gulf that could not he 
passed over " for generations to come. Even in that 
age of the world, when as a Profession, they were 
far from being what they ought to have been, they 
were the chief, if not the sole preservers of letters. 
" The Dark Ages " but too well deserve the name. 
But though they were dark, they were not without 
gleams of light. The darkness was not Egyptian, 
a blackness that was total and unrelieved. There 
were stars, if nothing more, in the expanse above us. 
And it was the clergy, as is held in remembrance 
by their very name, who kept the light of know- 
ledge from utter extinction in that dreary night of 
intellect. 

Nor are we indebted to them only for the indus- 
try with which they preserved the materials of classi- 
cal learning, both Greek and Roman. Physical sci- 
ence has always been largely a debtor to their labors. 
Six hundred years ago, or about the middle of 



THIRD LECTURE. 113 

the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon gave to the 
world his work, which obtained for him the title of 
" the Wonderful Doctor," in which we find the first 
movements towards several of those discoveries 
which have since revolutionized the face of the 
civilized world. Long before gunpowder was known 
in the art of war, he foretold. " a substance may be 
prepared which even in very small quantities will 
produce a loud report in the air, kindle like a train 
of fire, and be able to destroy whole castles and ar- 
mies." He was the first to teach that " we may cut 
or shape glasses so that some of them will enlarge 
objects, or bring them nearer, and others will di- 
minish or remove them farther ; some will make 
them appear upside down, others right them again." 
Here you find the germ of the telescope and micro- 
scope, which have immeasurably enlarged the limits 
of knowledge both in the terrestrial and celestial 
worlds. To mention only one other suggestion of 
his busy and prolific mind. "It is possible," he de- 
clared, " to build ships that might be managed by 
one man, and surpass in swiftness all ordinary ves- 
sels, even if full of rowers. Moreover, a kind of 
carriage may be constructed, which without being 



114 THIRD LECTURE. 

drawn by horses could go over an incredible space." 
The steamers and the locomotives, which are the 
boasted inventions of our day, are, as you here see, 
only the realization of Roger Bacon's original con- 
ceptions, the fulfilment of his bold predictions. 
Owing to the darkness of the age in which he lived, 
this far-sighted philosopher, whose diligent studies 
and skilful experiments led him to discover that 
such powers lay hidden in the bosom of nature, 
barely escaped being put to death as a magician. 
But notwithstanding the suspicions and reproach 
which he had to encounter; he brought to light 
what may be viewed as the first chapter in that 
long list of scientific discoveries which have ever 
since been in progress, and are yet to be carried on 
until every power of nature shall be subdued to the 
services and comfort of man. And yet, though per- 
secuted by his mistaken and narrow minded breth- 
ren, he still avowed himself to be one of the clergy, 
and that he wished to be always known and num- 
bered as belonging to the sacred profession. Nor 
should I fail, in this connection, to mention at least 
one more example in the history of truth and know- 
ledge, where we find the clergy taking the lead. 



THIRD LECTURE. 115 

It was mainly to such men as Luther and Calvin, 
and Knox and Cranmer, that we are indebted for 
that emancipation of mind, known emphatically as 
the Reformation, and which at the close of the 
" Dark Ages " led to new and enlarged views not 
only in religion, hut in philosophy, and in all the 
civil and social rights which exist between man 
and man. 

But much as the clergy have done for the exten- 
sion of knowledge in every department of learning, 
and many as are the examples we might cite from 
them who have stood high in letters as well as in 
religion ; we will forego at present all allusion to 
them, when we speak of distinguished scholars who 
have been intelligent believers in Christianity. It 
shall not be said that we derive our testimony from 
men who are influenced by the spirit either of their 
caste or their craft, as the official defenders of Reve- 
lation. "We confine ourselves to the laity ; and 
even then, the difficulty lies in determining whom 
to select out of so great a number of illustrious 
witnesses. 

As a prelude to the high names which I am 
about to recite, I should perhaps refer to some of 



116 THIED LECTUEE. 

the most distinguished- sages of antiquity, who have 
expressed in strong and pathetic language not only 
their longing desire to know what the gospel teach- 
es, but also their full conviction that such know- 
ledge could be revealed to man only by his Maker 
and Preserver. "Athenians," said Socrates, "you 
must wait till a personage appear, to teach you how 
you ought to conduct yourselves towards G-od and 
towards man." " "When," he adds " 0, when shall 
that period arrive ;" and when asked by Alcibiades, 
"Who is he that shall thus instruct mankind?" So- 
crates replied, " It is he who now takes care of you 
and is concerned for you." 

" I have entered the world in sin," said the far- 
famed Aristotle, " I have lived in ignorance, I die 
in perturbation. Cause of causes pity me!" 

In such affecting language did these venerable 
sages, the philosophers and leading minds of their 
day, confess and lament their ignorance of what 
they were anxious to know as moral and immortal 
beings. Such were their heart-felt longings for a re- 
velation of grace and truth from G-od, which should 
guide them in duty while they lived, and give them 
a sure and steadfast hope for eternity when they 



THIRD LECTURE. 117 

died. They had pursued their diligent inquiries 
far as unaided reason could carry them, but in the 
end, they " could rather feel after God than find 
him ;" and the more they knew concerning Him 
from his works, the more sensibly did they realize 
their need of that knowledge which they felt could 
be learned only from his word. They longed for 
the Bible, and to know what the Eible reveals ; and 
could such men as Socrates now speak from their 
graves, how would they put the hardened infidel 
to the blush, as they would rebuke his impiety 
and blasphemy in turning his back on this pre- 
cious volume, which they would have given 
worlds to possess. 

But leaving behind us lands covered with the 
darkness of paganism, let us turn to nations which 
have been visited with the day-spring from on high. 
Let us look at some of the luminaries in letters and 
science, who have enjoyed the light of the Gospel, 
and see how they regarded it. 

The text reminds us that when the Saviour was 
a new born babe and cradled in a manger, " "Wise 
men from the East," — men devoted to the philosophy 
tnen prevailing, honored and owned Him as the 



118 THIKD LECTUKE. 

Desire of nations and the Saviour of a lost world. 
As we proceed, you will find that the star which at 
the dawn of the Christian era thus led men of learn- 
ing to the feet of the Redeemer, has not yet disap- 
peared, or failed to fulfil its high office ; and as the 
space to which I confine myself will not allow 
me to enumerate the names of illustrious scholars 
who followed its guidance in the earlier ages of 
Christianity, let us at once come down to times 
more modern and more familiar. 

I will hegin with Poetry ; and the Muse I will 
here present to your view, is 

" No reeling Goddess with a zoneless waist." 

"We leave the inspiration derived from so fecu- 
lent a source to those who, in their ribald verse, 
have dishonored the Muse hy the impieties to which 
they have degraded her. "We read from a roll con- 
taining only the names of those who have sung in 
strains which have heen equally an honor to poetry 
and to themselves. Has infidelity its Spenser, its 
Tasso, its "Watts, its Young, its Cowper, its Scott ; 
or more than all, its Milton, the Prince of Poets, who 



THIRD LECTURE. 119 

accounted it the highest privilege of his Muse, that 
she came from 

" Zion's hill — or Siloah's brook, that flow'd fast by the oracle of God/' 

Or has the cold creed ever awakened in the science 
of music, so nearly allied to poetry, masters who 
have created the rich and majestic melody of Han- 
del, Hayden, Mozart ? Or if we pass to men whose 
polished minds have added to the graces of poetry, 
the sweetest specimens of prose in the whole range 
of "belles-lettres ; has infidelity ever produced its 
Addisons, its Beatties, its Goldsmiths ? Or has it 
in general literature, a man to place side "by side 
with Samuel Johnson ? 

If we come to the arts ; has infidelity its Chris- 
topher Wren in architecture ; its Raphael, Rey- 
nolds, or West, or Ashton in painting ; its Angelo, 
Canova, or Thorvaldsen in sculpture? 

If we pass into the regions of political science 
or political rule, has infidelity statesmen, who in 
sound views and wise measures for the welfare of 
nations, can equal G-rotius, Selden, Montesquieu, 
Raleigh. Burke, Pitt ; or a man, we should still 



120 THIRD LECTURE. 

more revere, Washington, to whom I may now add 
Clay and "Wehster ? 

In the noble profession of Law, can she furnish 
us with a Blackstone, a Hale, a Somers, a Mans- 
field, a Marshall, a Story, a Kent ? 

Nor would I pass by the Medical Profession, in 
which is centred the knowledge so important to life 
and health. Much as infidels have claimed from 
some distinguished members of the healing a,rt, 
where are their men who can take rank with Har- 
vey, Sydenham, Boerhaave, Gregory, Goode, Cooper 
and Rush ? 

But to philosophy properly so called, they would 
perhaps wish to lead us. And so be it. "We are 
ready to follow them to any region of learning or 
knowledge. We will go back then to the age when 
the father of sound philosophy gave the first great 
impulse to the human mind, that has done so much 
to free it from the bondage of former generations. 
Has infidelity a name among his contemporaries, 
to compare with Lord Bacon ? Or has it among the 
philosophers of that century, those whom it can 
rank with Newton, Boyle, Locke or Leibnitz ? Or 
in later days, has it men who in ripe scholarship 



THIRD LECTURE. 121 

and deep researches can equal Sir W Jones, Du- 
gald Stewart, Davy, Herschel, Cnvier, and others of 
equal distinction "both at home and abroad, who 
are still living, and whom for that reason, delicacy 
forbids me to mention? 

I might extend this list until I had rendered 
the catalogue wearisome to your patience. Eut I 
would not confine myself to a mere enumeration of 
names, however great. I would better deserve your 
attention by turning back and showing you wha/t 
some of these men have done, and where, by uni- 
versal consent, they stand in the world of knowledge. 

"Who then was Bacon ? The name had not been 
rendered less illustrious by descending from the 
clergyman of the thirteenth century to the philoso- 
pher of the sixteenth. Lord Bacon was a great libe- 
rator of literature, from the tyranny of form and 
theory. The scholastic rules of reasoning which 
had prevailed previous to his day, were to the 
minds of men what the coat of mail was to their 
bodies, excellent for defence as warfare was then 
practised ; but an encumbrance to the limbs of a 
warrior, and a hindrance to his movements, when 
called to act for an object, or in circumstances not 



122 THIED LECTURE. 

foreseen. Bacon created a new era in knowledge, 
by teaching men how to use their faculties with 
more freedom and effect. He did even more in phi- 
losophy than Columbus did on our globe; for he 
not only showed how new worlds of knowledge may 
be discovered, hut also how all their treasures may 
be approached and applied to promote every great 
interest of man. He turned upon the School-men 
and asked, " Is truth ever barren ? Are we the 
richer by one poor invention by reason of the learn- 
ing which has been for these many hundred years ?" 
And if " he found knowledge barren he made it 
fruitful." He not only taught that philosophy should 
be drawn from facts ; but he also showed how to 
use ascertained facts, so as to impart new clear- 
ness, force and value to philosophy. He gave new 
meaning to the maxim, that "knowledge is power;' 5 
and it is from the spirit of life which he breathed 
into learning, endowing it with " a living soul," 
that we have seen her, ever since his day, gradually 
reaching and subjecting one element of nature after 
another to the welfare and happiness of the human 
family. But with all this eminence as a philoso- 
pher, no one ever showed a more profound and 



THIED LECTURE. 123 

intelligent faith in the Bible than Lord Francis 
Bacon. Among the memorable sayings in which 
his wisdom and learning lie embalmed for future 
generations, we find nothing more impressive than 
his prayer, — " Thy creatures have been my books; 
but thy scriptures much more. I have sought thee 
in the courts, fields and gardens ; but I have found 
thee in thy temples." 

"Who was Milton ? As a poet he had no com- 
peer. Homer and Yirgil may share the laurels ot 
antiquity between them, but the higher honor as- 
signed to Milton, in the lines of Dry den, is not to 
be questioned ; — 

u Three poets in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy and England did adorn ; 
The first in loftiness of thought surpast ; 
The next in majesty, in both the last 
The force of nature could no further go ; 
To make a third she joined the other two. 

But the poetry of Milton is not the only pro- 
duct of his surpassing intellect which entitles him 
to the grateful admiration of his race. He was 
among the first and best writers who explained and 
vindicated those great principles of ci\dl and reli- 



124 THIED LECTURE. 

gious freedom which have borne their ripe fruit in 
the liberty and independence of our own happy land. 
Need I say what he thought of Christianity whose 
" Paradise lost " and " Paradise regained," are one 
continued tribute of reverence to the great truths of 
the gospel ? And yet so full to the purpose of meet- 
ing objections of the scoffer, are the following sen- 
tences, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
quoting them. " Grod having to this end ordained 
his gospel to be the revelation of his power and 
wisdom in Christ Jesus, this is one depth of his 
wisdom, that he could so plainly reveal so great 
a measure of it to the gross, distorted apprehen- 
sion of decayed mankind. Let others therefore 
dread and shun the Scriptures for their darkness ; 
I shall wish I may deserve to be reckoned among 
those who admire and dwell upon them for their 
clearness." 

I will next ask who was Sir Isaac Newton? 
Had his theory of light and colors been his only 
achievement, he would have deserved a high place 
among Natural Philosophers. But when to these 
you add, not only his advances in Mathematical 
science, but those vast discoveries in Astronomy, 



THIKD LECTURE. 125 

which render us familiar with the laws and move- 
ments of the countless worlds which surround our 
own, there is a grandeur attached to his name, to 
which everv one loves to render homage. He seems 
to have overleaped, at a hound, the ohstacles which 
had arrested the progress of other men in their in- 
vestigations ; and so quick and vigilant was his 
spirit of ohservation, that from the fall qf an apple 
in his garden, he first caught the idea which ex- 
plains the revolutions of sun, moon and stars. And 
yet, no day was allowed hy Newton to pass by 
without refreshing his spirit by a devout perusal 
of some portion from the Holy Bible. So great 
was his love and reverence for it, that he never 
would allow an unbecoming reference to be made 
to it in his hearing, without a solemn rebuke ; 
and engrossed as he was in philosophical pursuits, 
and high as was the eminence to which they had 
raised his name, yet he spent some of his best 
days in the study and elucidation of the sacred 
volume. As if ambitious to place on record his 
supreme regard for the Bible, he has told us " 1 
grant the Scriptures of G-od to be the most sub- 
lime philosophy. I find more sure marks of au- 

8 



126 THIED LECTUEE. 

thenticity in the Bible than in any profane his- 
tory whatever." 

"Who was Locke ? The first man who applied 
the canons of philosophy, as set forth by Bacon, 
to Metaphysical Science, exhibiting the powers 
and laws of the human understanding in a form 
which enabled men to know themselves. And if 
the superb,, structure which he reared, has since 
undergone modifications and changes, we owe 
these finishing improvements to a scholar of a 
recent day, who vies with his great predecessor in 
the profound homage which both render to the 
value and sacredness of Christianity. The testi- 
mony of Locke to the Bible, remarkable for truth 
and brevity, and comprehensiveness, has been so 
often quoted as to render it familiar to you all. 
" The scriptures " he says " have God for their au- 
thor ; eternity for their object ; and truth, without 
any mixture of error, for their subject matter." 

"Who was Sir AVilliam Jones ? A master mind 
of the first order. Though he finished his career 
before he reached the age of half a century, he was 
confessedly the first man of his day in the variety 
and extent of his learning. The accomplished 



THIRD LECTURE. 12? 

jurist, and ripe scholar in the laws and literature 
of England, he became the pioneer of European 
learning into the rich and splendid regions of in- 
tellect found among the nations of Asia ; and from 
their languages and their laws, their poetry and 
philosophy, he brought tribute alike valuable and 
unexpected to the cause of science and letters. But 
when he had made himself familiar with the labors 
of the greatest and purest minds both of Asia and 
Europe ; and with a keen relish for their various 
beauties, could attribute to each their just measure 
of praise ; when he speaks of the Bible, he tells us 
that " the Scriptures, contain, independently of 
their divine origin, more true sublimity, more ex- 
quisite beauty, more pure morality, more impor- 
tant history, and finer strains both of poetry and 
eloquence, than could be collected from all other 
books that were ever composed in any age or ih 
any idiom. The two parts of which the Scriptures 
consist, are connected by a chain of compositions 
which bear no resemblance, in form or style, to any 
that can be produced from the stores of G-recian, 
Indian, Persian, or even Arabian learning. The 
antiquity of those compositions no man doubts ; 



128 



THIRD LECTURE. 



and the unrestrained application of them to events, 
long subsequent to their publication , is a solid 
ground of belief that they were genuine produc- 
tions, and consequently inspired." Not that he 
thought less of the diamond than of the casket 
which contained it. The doctrines of the Bible 
were as precious to his heart as the beauties of its 
style were grateful to his taste. One of the last 
gems which dropped from his cultivated mind is 
in the beautiful lines, 

" Before thy mystic altar, heayenly truth, 
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth ; 
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay, 
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray ; 
Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below, 
Soar without bound, without consuming, glow." 

To come to our own country : I will first men- 
tion a name which, if less distinguished among 
the learned, is universally known and recognized 
among the wise and great of his race. Shall I ask, 
who was "Washington ? or can I utter the words> 
until every one will have answered in the oft re- 
peated language, " He was first in war, first in 



THIRD LECTURE. 129 

peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
In our nation, he is a man standing alone, on a 
pedestal that can belong to none hut himself. If 
there have been men who stand before him in 
brilliancy and quickness of mind, in extent of 
learning; where does he find a superior in the 
soundness of his opinion on every subject which he 
professed to understand ; in his accurate judgment 
as to every thing which most concerned the wel- 
fare of men and of nations ? But with that noble 
heart and^ clear head, Christianity was entwined 
as an element of his life. In his boyhood, its prin- 
ciples were implanted within him by his widowed 
mother, while she watched over him as her best 
earthly hope. In ripe manhood, you could see 
him, when at the head of our armies, going from 
the camp to sit down at the communion table, 
with a heart all melted over the emblems of a 
dying Saviour's love ; and at this day, with the 
relatives who still survive him, is the Family 
Bible, bearing its many proofs of how often it had 
been perused, and how carefully he had treasured 
up the promises which sustained him in his peace- 
ful death. In his various public acts, he was 



ISO THIRD LECTURE. 

studiously careful to proclaim his confidence in 
Christianity, not only as his own best hope, but 
also as the only hope of the nation. In his ad- 
dress to the civil authorities of the several States 
upon disbanding the army, at the close of the 
devolution, he speaks in the devout language, " I 
now make my earnest prayer that Grod would 
have you, and the State over which you preside, 
under his holy protection ; that he would incline 
the hearts of the citizens to cultivate the spirit of 
subordination and obedience to government, lc en- 
tertain a brotherly affection and love for one 
another, for their fellow-citizens of the United 
States at large, and particularly for their brethren 
who have served in the field ; and finally, that He 
would be most graciously pleased to dispose us all 
to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean our- 
selves with that charity, humility, and pacific 
temper of mind, which were the characteristics of 
the Divine author of our blessed religion, and 
without an humble imitation of whose example 
in these things, we can never hope to be a happy 
nation." 

You will not be surprised that in this connee* 



THIRD LECTURE. 131 

tion I should refer to one whose recent death has 
made ns a nation of mourners, and at whose grave 
the jealousies and strifes of political party have 
subsided into one sentiment of universal grief. 
"Who was Daniel Webster ? We all know where 
he stood as a man, a scholar and a statesman. He 
had no one above him. If it belonged to Wash- 
ington alone to enjoy undisputed pre-eminence in 
peace and in war, and in the heart of the nation, 
it is equally true of W r ebster, that he had no 
superior in the Senate, at the Forum, or in the 
Cabinet councils of his country. Whenever he 
spoke, high and low, learned and unlearned, were 
anxious to listen. But never were his lips more 
filled with the majesty of truth than when he was 
about to take leave of the world, and of all the 
scenes of his former greatness. Not a power oi 
his mighty intellect was impaired by the ravages oi 
disease. He died as he had lived, the great man ; 
but most and best of all, the humble Christian 
When he had stood before the Senate in the pleni- 
tude of his strength, as the acknowledged defender 
of the Constitution, he was not more anxious that 
his language might be strong and his meaning 



132 THIKD LECTUEE. 

clear, than he was in his last days, when he 
gave his testimony to the truth and preciousness 
of the gospel, which reveals salvation for lost man 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. As a lasting and 
conspicuous memorial of the faith which supported 
his heart, living and dying, he directed the words of 
Scripture to be inscribed on his tomb,- — " Lord, T 
believe. Help thou mine unbelief;" and there the 
inscription stands, to be known and read of all 
men, to prove his sincerity and humilitv as a 
believer in the only begotten Son of G-od. 

Let us for a moment look back upon these dis- 
tinguished men ; and to enable us the more justly 
to appreciate the value of their testimony to the 
truth of Christianity, let us observe, 

1st. That they are generally selected from those 
pursuits and professions which are best adapted to 
give enlargement and vigor to the understanding ; 
to form its powers for sound and clear discrimina- 
tion of truth from error. This, it must be confess- 
ed, is a habit or power of mind not always found 
in the secluded student, however deep or thorough 
his investigations. Too often theory is every thing 
with such men. The creations of their own minds, 



THIRD LECTURE. 133 

are frequently the only creations which they relish. 
The fitness of things to the great purposes of life 
is what they do not always comprehend, nor love 
to contemplate. The consequence is, they often 
become "Tain in their imaginations." Their minds 
become unsound. And from just this class of 
learned men do you find infidelity gathering up 
her favorite and most distinguished recruits. As 
every one knows, who is acquainted with the bio- 
graphies of her Humes and Rousseaus; I might 
give you instance after instance, to show how often 
they rendered themselves even ridiculous by their 
weak credulity in the concerns of practical life. 
Not so with the bright constellation of witnesses 
which Christianity brings forward to testify on her 
behalf. Here we see not only men who in their 
day were prodigies of learning ; but we find those 
also among them who have carried their well 
stored intellects into the active concerns of human 
welfare, and have taken a leading part in the im- 
provement and government of mankind, in all 
their civil, political and social relations. We 
have accordingly shown you the very choicest ol 
men, not only from the halls and groves of Phi- 



134 THIRD LECTURE, 

losophy, Lut from tlie Bar and the Bench, from the 
Camp and the Cabinet ; men whose minds were 
accustomed to weigh in the balances of truth, both 
men and things ; who could not only reason with 
clearness, but could act with energy; and from 
them all, especially from the best and greatest of 
them all, you have leading advocates and orna- 
ments of Christianity. Let me add, 

2d. And in the next place, several of these 
learned and distinguished men had once, or at 
times, been led to doubt, if not to deny the inspira- 
tion of the Bible. Their faith in the Scriptures 
therefore, was far from being the result of unthink- 
ing trust. It did not come to them as a matter of 
tradition. It was the fruit of careful investigation, 
and generally of such investigation, at a period of 
life when their faculties were well matured, and 
in the prime of their strength. Sir "William Jones 
had filled the length and breadth of the land with 
his name, when feeling his mind unsettled or dis- 
turbed on the question by difficulties which had 
been artfully thrown in his way, he sat down and 
gave all his best powers to a careful examination 
of the subject ; and became more than ever a firm 



THIRD LECTURE. 135 

believer in the Gospel, and so remained until his 
death. The mind of Webster also had been liable 
occasionally to similar disquietude. " Philosophi- 
cal argument," he tells us, " especially that drawn 
from the yastness of the universe, in comparison 
with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has 
sometimes shaken my reason for the faith which 
is in me ; but my heart has always assured and 
re- assured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must 
be a Divine reality ;" and to give lasting evidence 
of his final and settled convictions, he directed that 
this declaration should be engraven on his tomb, 
side by side with the words already quoted as a 
portion of his epitaph. Notwithstanding Dr. Beat- 
tie's strong faith in the Gospel, and his triumphant 
vindication of it against infidelity, many of his 
most intelligent readers have thought he was de- 
scribing the conflict through which his own mind 
had passed, when he penned the beautiful lines in 
" The Hermit," 

" Twas thus, by the glare of false Science betray'd, 
That leads, to bewilder ; and dazzles, to blind ; 
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade, 
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind : 



136 THIKD LECTURE. 

pity, great Father of light, then I cried, 

Thy creature who fain would not wander from Thee ! 

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride : 

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free." 

3d. "We may further observe, that among the 
learned whom we have most prominently exhibit- 
ed as believers in the gospel, are many who have 
distinguished themselves as innovators in science. 
We have often been told that if the world should 
see a day when the minds of men could be released 
from the trammels of tradition, and when reverence 
for usage and antiquity would yield to a spirit of 
free inquiry after truth, then the Bible, with other 
remnants of past ages, would be disowned. But, 
as we have seen, that desired day of intellectual 
liberation has been granted to our world, and has 
been produced by the labors of such intellectual 
reformers as we have been describing. They were 
indeed far from making a reckless and indiscrimi- 
nate war on the opinions of those who had lived 
before them. They did not repudiate every thing 
that was old because it was old. But while they 
„ felt a deep and becoming reverence for the learn- 
ing and for the men of former days ; so far was it 



THIRD LECTURE. 137 

from being the habit of their minds to submit 
blindly to the mere authority of antiquity and 
custom, they were the very men who took the first 
steps which disinthralled the learned world from 
its bondage to long established habits of thought 
and argument. So was it especially with Bacon, 
and afterwards with Newton and Locke, in their 
respective spheres of study and investigation, In 
Philosophy, in Astronomy, in Metaphysics, indeed 
throughout the whole wide range of learning, they 
broke down the barriers which from the days of 
Aristotle had greatly restrained and hindered free- 
dom of inquiry; and they carried their investiga- 
tions, with a fearless spirit, into regions which till 
then had been considered as alike unknown and 
forbidden to man. The great characteristic which 
distinguished these wonder working scholars lay 
in this undismayed and adventurous spirit, by 
which they gave new forms and larger growth to 
science, and exploded and exposed the delusions 
of former ages. Eut while in their new philoso- 
phy they grasped a lever like that of Archimedes, 
by which they moved the world of learning and 
overthrew error after error; what was the effect 



138 THIRD LECTURE. 

of their new powers of reasoning when Drought to 
bear upon the Bible ? It stood before them as it 
has always stood before every one who would ex- 
amine into its truth with sincerity and patient in- 
dustry. Its stability and divinity were made only 
the more manifest by the' new tests to which it 
was now subjected ; and none among the learned 
or unlearned were more devout believers in its 
holy doctrines than the gigantic masters in learn- 
ing, who seemed to have been born to liberate the 
world from the errors of former ages, and to enlight- 
en it in the highest attainments of human wisdom 
4th. "We may remark in this connection, that 
time, the great test of truth and wisdom, is con- 
tinually furnishing new proofs, which show the 
superior soundness and wider compass of the 
learning that is arrayed on the side of Christianity. 
This will be more fully demonstrated as we pro- 
ceed in the lectures we have prescribed to our- 
selves. Eut we will here cite an instance of it, 
which owing to the occurrences of our day has 
become remarkably striking. In the commenta- 
ries which Sir Isaac Newton has written on the 
Prophecies of Daniel, and on the Apocalypse, he 



THIRD LECTURE. 139 

has occasion to speak of the "rapidity with which 
events must he Drought to pass, in order to prepare 
the way for the universal spread of the gospel at 
the time predicted ; and he avows his "belief that 
men will discover the means of passing from place 
to place with unwonted speed, perhaps at the rate 
of fifty miles in an hour. Yoltaire in his self-con- 
ceit and hostility to religion scoffs at the sugges- 
tion, not only as a contradiction to the principles 
of sober sense and sound philosophy, but as a proof 
of the bewildering and entangling influence of 
Christianity on the mind of a great man. He does 
not question the services which Newton has ren- 
dered to the cause of philosophy, while devoting 
his mind to subjects of science; but he professes 
deep regret, to see the enlightened philosopher ren- 
dered a poor dotard by employing his mind in the 
study of the Scriptures. "We now see the locomo- 
tive actually accomplishing as nothing rare or ex- 
traordinary all that Newton foretold ; and can 
safely judge which of the two has the best claim 
on our confidence as a man of learning — Newton, 
the humble and sincere believer in the gospel, or 
Voltaire, the scoffing infidel. 



140 



THIKD LECTURE 



Nor would we take leave of this incittaxjt vo'a- 
out considering not only how strongly it reminds 
us of the fact, that profound learning has "been 
generally if not universally found on the side of 
Christianity ; but also how it illustrates the care 
and wisdom with which God in his providence has 
ordered the time and manner of bringing forth 
many of the best discoveries in science and art, so 
as most effectually to confound and put to shame 
the boastful objections of infidelity ; a wisdom too, 
which, as we hope to show, both controls, the 
important discoveries that are now essentially im- 
proving human comfort and welfare, and reaches 
even events comparatively minute and inconside- 
rable. It has been remarked as a singular coinci- 
dence, that the very same press which Yoltaire em- 
ployed at Ferney to publish many of his attacks 
on Christianity, was afterwards employed at Ge- 
neva for printing and disseminating the Holy 
Scriptures : and also that an estate which Gibbon 
purchased in Switzerland with the profits arising 
from his infidel publications, afterwards came into 
the possession of an owner who employed a large 
portion of the income accruing from it, to aid in 



THIRD LECTURE. 141 

circulating the Gospel, which G-ihhon had endea- 
vored to undermine and discredit. " This also 
cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is won- 
derful in counsel, and excellent in working." In 
his inscrutahle ways he employs means "both great 
and small, to show that his cause, like his church, 
is founded " ona rock, and that the gates of hell 
shall not prevail against it." 

5th. Let me add in conclusion, that much as it 
may avail to put opposers to silence, when we find 
such men as those we have ennumerated, avowing 
themselves the sincere advocates of Christianity ; 
we should never forget that the paramount claim 
of this Holy Book upon our faith and love is 
too high and holy to he affected hy any human 
authority, however great or venerable. The creed 
of these eminent scholars and philosophers bor- 
rowed no lustre from their names, but their names 
have derived imperishable lustre from their creed. 
The stars can impart no brightness to the sun, 
they can but tell of the effulgence and glory which 
belong to him by reflecting the light which they 
borrow from him, and in which they shine. And 

blessed be God, the light which spreads from "The 

9 



142 THIRD LECTURE. 

Sun of Righteousness," can reach the hearts of the 
learned and the unlearned, and can " turn them 
all from darkness to light, and from the power 
of Satan unto God." In times gone by, it has 
wrought its wonders of illumination and conver- 
sion, both "in the household of the Caesars" at 
Imperial Rome, and among the barbarous slaves 
of her subjugated provinces ; and while at this day 
it is subduing to the obedience of faith the mighti- 
est minds, in nations most advanced in knowledge 
and refinement, it is also elevating the poor de- 
graded African, from ignorance and brutality, and 
giving him a place among the heirs of immortality 
and glory. 

Had every time-honored name which we have 
placed before you been arrayed against this holy 
volume, had all the learned of every age and every 
land combined, with one consent, to pronounce it 
folly and imposture ; still our duty to receive it as 
the inspired word of G-od, " worthy of all accepta- 
tion," would not be the less solemn and binding ; 
still it would not be the less precious to every one 
who has sins to be forgiven and a soul to be saved. 
Its strongest claim to bind the conscience and 



THIKD LECTURE. 143 

rule the conduct, is derived not only from the ex- 
ternal evidences of its truth, but from the imprint 
it bears as a part of its own essence, manifesting 
itself to the heart of the sinner as a revelation of 
mercy from G-od. " Thy word is light," and like 
the light shining from the heavens, it has a self- 
evidencing power, making itself known to every 
one who has the faculty of sight. It comes to 
men finding them weary and heavy-laden, the 
whole head sick, and the whole heart faint; and 
it commends itself to their case, as a balm serft 
fragrant and fresh from the garden of God, to 
remove every variety of woe which sin has brought 
into our world. 

Let us turn our thoughts for a moment to this 
aspect of our subject, and see what the gospel has 
done and is doing every day, as proof that it comes 
from above. It goes to the house of mourning, 
where the widow and fatherless are stricken down 
by a blow which has left them bereaved and 
alone, and it calls them to Him who is " a father 
of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, in his 
holy habitation ;" and there dries up their tears, 
and shows them how to find peace, which neither 



144 THIRD LECTUSE. 

death nor the grave can take away or impair. It 
enters the dark prison house, where the victim of 
cruelty and oppression lies chained and immured 
in his cheerless cell, and it spreads a light through 
his soul, till unconscious of his bonds, like Paul 
and Silas in the prison at Philippi, he sings prais- 
es to God, and turns his gloomy dungeon into the 
vestibule of heaven. It searches out the malady 
which man can neither inflict or remove, the pain 
of a conscience awaked to a conviction of sin 
against G-od ; and when the tossed and agonized 
sinner can find no door of hope, no hand to heal 
in the wide world around him, it points him to the 
atoning " Lamb of G-od who taketh away the sins 
of the world a,nd at the sight of the cross, and 
of the bleeding victim there, a sense of forgiveness 
from Grod scatters every cloud, and becomes within 
him a fountain of joy which even angels never 
felt. It comes to the heart sick with the cares 
and crosses of this world, sore and faint from being 
so often pierced by the broken reed on which it 
has leaned ; and when th e drooping sufferer, like 
the patriarch of Uz, would almost " choose strang- 
ling and death rather than life," it breathes re- 



THIRD LECTURE. 145 

freshment and peace into his spirit, and pointing to 
the skies as his home, gives patience to wait for 
the hour when " the weary are at rest and the 
wicked cease from troubling." And when that 
last hour has come, the hour which awaits us, one 
and all, the hour when we must die, and when the 
soul within us, if left to itself, would shrink hack 
from the darkness before it ; then does the gospel 
shine alike before the learned and the unlearned, 
and brightening the vale before us, till it has chang- 
ed the gloom of death into the brightness of immor- 
tality, we become lost in its glory, and exchange 
the sighs of pain and fear for the song of Moses 
and the Lamb. 

These are the fruits of the gospel, well known 
and widely spread, and to these it makes its high- 
est and strongest appeal, as proof that it comes 
from G-od. When its Divine Author came into 
our world, he proclaimed both his own character, 
and the object of his mission, in the heart-touching 
words — " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me ; 
because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me to 
bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to 



146 THIRD LECTURE. 

the captives, and the opening of the prison to them 
that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year 
of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our Grod ; 
to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them 
that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for 
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of 
praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they might 
be called Trees of righteousness, the planting of 
the Lord, that he might be glorified." And in such 
deeds of mercy and loving kindness, his holy word 
has engraved the record of its own divinity and 
value, throughout all ages and all nations in 
which it has been known ; not on tablets that 
might decay and be lost, but on immortal souls 
of the redeemed, who are to live forever. And 
when infidelity would persuade us to cast it away 
as delusion and vanity, let her first show us what 
she has to give us in its room. Let her spread 
before us a truthful record of the woes she has 
healed, and the joys in life and death which she 
has dispensed. "We challenge her to the task ; we 
demand that she tell us where we can find the 
widow and the orphan that she has comforted, the 
oppressed that she has relieved, the wounded con- 



THIRD LECTURE. 147 

science that she has soothed and healed, the dying 
that she has made triumphant over death and the 
grave ; and if she will undertake to furnish such 
proofs of her value to fallen man, we will leave 
her laboring in the fire, aiming to do what cannot 
be done till she has wearied herself out with her 
vain inventions, and we will then open a new leaf 
to show the fruits of the G-ospel, as a proof that it 
comes from God. What we have seen are hut 
parts of its ways for the welfare of man. We can 
point to the future of our world with as much con- 
fidence as we can refer to the past. The day is 
coming when the G-ospel will expel from the face 
of the whole earth the calamities which infidelity, 
and other forms of depravity, have brought on our 
race ; when it will so subdue and calm down the 
evil passions of men, that with one accord " they 
shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their 
spears into pruning hooks ; nation shall not lift up 
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war 
any more ;" when it will so unite them to God and 
to each other, and so fill their minds with a know- 
ledge of his will, that " they shall teach no more 
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, 



148 THIRD LECTURE. 

saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know him, 
from the least of them unto the greatest of them 
when even the great and wise of this world who 
may now magnify themselves against the Lord and 
against his Anointed, will hasten to lay their earthly 
glories at the foot of the cross, of their own will 
" casting down imaginations and every high thing 
that exalteth itself against the knowledge of G-od, 
and bringing into captivity every thought into the 
obedience of Christ." All this happy change is yet 
to be wrought in our world by the G-ospel; and 
thus, as age follows age, in time to come will the 
proof grow brighter and brighter, that the Eible is 
a revelation of grace and mercy from Heaven. 



Christianity contrasted with Infidelity, in its influence 
on the happiness of Man in this world, 



Proverbs, xiii. 14, 15. 

" The law of the wise is a fountain of life, . . . 
but the way of transgressors is hard. 

In a previous lecture we have contrasted the 
learning arrayed against Christianity, with that 
which has "been enlisted in its favor and defence. 
"We did not confine ourselves to any one branch of 
knowledge; and to whatever department of letters 
and science we have turned our thoughts, we have 
still found the ripest scholarship, the highest stan- 
dard of learning, on the side of the Bible. But be- 
fore we have done with this part of our subject 
we would carry the contrast between Christianity 
and Infidelity still farther. 

It is admitted on all sides that happiness is the 



150 FOURTH LECTURE. 

great object of human pursuit, one great end of 
man's existence. No one who claims to be a ra- 
tional being would so blaspheme his Maker, or do 
such violence to his own nature, as to deny that 
he was made to be happy. G-od is perfectly bless- 
ed in himself, and "in his own image made he 
man." Of course, whatever most effectually and 
really promotes our happiness here and hereafter, 
bears on its face that it comes from G-od ; for it 
contributes to the fulfilment of His wise and mer- 
ciful purpose when He called us into being. Let 
us now weigh Christianity and Infidelity in these 
balances, so far as may be practicable in a single 
discourse. Let us contrast their respective influ- 
ence on the happiness of those who embraced the 
one or the other. Nor will we here speak of what 
awaits men in the eternal world, when they have 
passed beyond that vail which no human eye is 
allowed to penetrate. We confine our argument to 
what we can all see, respecting which there can be 
no dispute ; and we ask, is the christian or the in- 
fidel the happier man in life, and at death, even 
was there no eternity to follow ? 

I am the more willing to take a view of om 



FOURTH LECTUKE. 151 

subject in this light in order to meet and refute a 
reproach that infidels are constantly casting on 
Christianity. "We all know how loudly they talk 
of the bondage and the privations which religion 
inflicts on the christian; and how triumphantly 
they contrast all this imagined misery with their 
own enlarged measure of enjoyment, springing, as 
they would have us believe, from their rejection of 
the faith and practice enjoined in the Bible. On a 
question like this, facts well attested should be 
allowed to speak for themselves ; we accordingly 
appeal to them, and in evidence of how far infidel- 
ity makes the infidel a happy man, we will let him 
speak for himself. Let it be observed too, that as 
witnesses on behalf of Infidelity, we will select 
those with whom the world has dealt most kindly. 
We will cite those, and those only, who, according 
to their own creed, possessed every advantage 
which tends to give peace and happiness. They 
shall be those who not only had wealth and what- 
ever it could procure, but who had also gained a 
prize that gold and silver could not buy; they had 
fame — a world-wide fame ; they had station to 
which all around them looked up ; they had an 



152 F0U11TH LECTUKE. 

homage paid to them for their acquirements of 
mind, which even princes and kings could not com- 
mand. They had everything but religion; every- 
thing but what we call "the one thing needful," 
but which they called the one thing needless and 
vain. Let us learn from their own confessions of 
what avail were their high attainments to give 
them peace and happiness while they lived and 
when they died, and then contrast their state with 
that of men who superadded to intellectual dis- 
tinction and high station a firm and controlling 
faith in the G-ospel. 

Let us glance at some of them when in the 
prime of their strength and greatness, when the 
world was still smiling on them with its flatteries, 
and their fame yet towering at its culminating 
point. It was at such a period of his life that we 
will look at Voltaire, and hear from him, the utter- 
ings of his heart in view of all around him. 

" Who " he exclaims, " can, without horror, con- 
sider the whole world as the empire of destruction ? 
It abounds with murders ; it also abounds with vic- 
tims. It is a vast field of carnage and contagion. 
Every species is without pity pursued, and torn to 



FOURTH LECTURE. 153 

pieces through the earth, and air. and water. In 
man there is more wretchedness than in all the 
other animals put together. He loves life, and yet 
he knows that he must die. If he enjoys a transient 
good, he suffers various evils, and is at last devour- 
ed "by worms. This knowledge is his fatal preroga- 
tive; other animals have it not. He spends the 
transient moments of his existence in diffusing the 
miseries which he suffers ; in cutting the throats of 
his fellow-creatures for pay ; in cheating and "being 
cheated ; in rohhing and "being rohhed ; in serving 
that he may command, and in repenting of all he 
does. The hulk of mankind are nothing more than 
a crowd of wretches equally criminal and unfor- 
tunate, and the glohe contains rather carcases than 
men. I tremble, in the review of this dreadful pic- 
ture, to find that it contains a complaint against 
Providence itself ; and I wish that I had never 
been born." 

Equally gloomy and disconsolate were the 
views of Hume while immersed in his infidel philo- 
sophy, as he tells us in the confession : " Methinks," 
he says, " I am like a man who, having struck on 
many shoals and quicksands, and narrowly escaped 



154 FOUETH LECTUKE. 

shipwreck on passing a small frith, has yet the te- 
merity to put out to sea in the same leaky, weath- 
er-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so 
far as to think of compassing the globe under these 
disadvantageous circumstances. My memory of 
past errors makes me diffident of the future ; the 
wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the 
faculties I must employ in the inquiry, increase 
my apprehensions ; the impossibility of correcting 
or amending these faculties reduces me almost to 
despair, and makes me resolve to perish on the bar- 
ren rock on which I am at present, rather than 
enter upon the boundless ocean which runs out 
into immensity. This sudden view of my danger 
strikes me with melancholy, and I cannot forbear 
feeding my despair with all those desponding re- 
flections which the present subject furnishes me 
with in such abundance. I am first affrighted and 
confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I 
am placed in my philosophy, and fancy myselJ 
some uncouth, strange monster, who not being able 
to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled 
all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned 
and disconsolate. Fain would I run into the crowd 



FOUETH LECTUEE. 155 

for shelter and warmth, hut cannot prevail upon 
myself to mix up with such deformity. I call upon 
others to join me in order to make a company 
apart, but no one will hearken to me — every one 
shuns me and keeps at a distance from that storm 
which heats upon me on every side. When I look 
abroad, I see on every side dispute, contradiction, 
anger, calumny and detraction; when I turn my 
eye inward I find nothing but doubt and igno- 
rance. All the world conspires to oppose and con- 
tradict me, though such is my weakness, I feel my 
opinions loosen and fall off of themselves, when 
unsupported by the approbation of others ; every 
step I take is with hesitation, and every new re- 
flection makes me dread an error and absurdity in 
my reasoning — for with what confidence can I 
venture on such bold enterprises, when besides 
those numberless infirmities so peculiar to myself, 
I find so many that are common to human nature ? 
This intense view of manifold contradictions and 
infirmities in human reason, has so worked upon 
my brain that I am ready to reject all belief and 
reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as 
more likely and probable than another. "Where am 



156 FOUETH LECTURE. 

I, or what? Prom what causes do I derive my 
existence, and to what condition shall I return? 
Whose favor shall I court, and whose anger shall I 
dread ? Y/hat beings surround me, and on whom 
have I any influence, or who have any influence 
on me ? I am confounded by all these questions, 
and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable 
condition imaginable, environed with the deepest 
darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every 
member and faculty." 

Let us turn to another, the most polished gen- 
tleman and splendid orator of his day, himself of 
noble descent, and so gifted with brilliancy of 
parts, that nobles and royalty itself sought for his 
company at any price ; so elevated in authority 
that the destinies of an empire were committed to 
his hands ; and withal a scholar who drank freely 
from the fountains of learning and general intelli- 
gence. Let us hear the urbane, the powerful, the 
envied, but infidel Chesterfield speak. 

" I have run," he tells us, " the silly rounds of 
pleasure and of business ; and I have done with 
them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of the 
world, and consequently know their futility, and 



FOURTH LECTURE. 15? 

do not regret their loss. I appraise them at their 
real value, which is in truth very low; whereas 
those who have not experienced, always overrate 
them. They only see their fair outside, and are 
dazzled with their glare. But I have heen hehind 
the scenes. I have seen all the coarse pullies and 
dirty ropes which exhibit and move the gaudy ma- 
chines ; and I have seen and smelt the tallow can- 
dles which illuminated the whole decoration to the 
astonishment and admiration of an ignorant audi- 
ence. When I reflect hack upon what I have seen, 
what I have heard, what I have done, I can hardly 
persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and 
bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality ; 
and I look on what has passed as one of those wild 
dreams which opium occasions, and I by no means 
desire to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of 
the fugitive illusion. Shall I tell you that I bear 
this melancholy situation with that meritorious 
constancy and resignation which most people boast 
of? No. I cannot help it. I bear it, because I 
must bear it, whether I will or no. I think of 
nothing but killing time the best way I can, now 

that he has become mine enemy." 

10 



158 FOURTH LECTUEE. 

These wailings of hate and despair are in such 
close resemblance to the following lines of Byron, 
that we cannot refrain from quoting them. He 
was alike eminent in the splendor of his genius 
and in his hardened wickedness ; and he gives us 
an insight into the desolation of his heart when he 
proclaims in his fascinating verse ; 

" Though gay companions o'er the bowl, 
Dispel awhile the sense of ill, 
Though pleasure fill the maddening soul, 
The heart — the heart is lonely still. 

" Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
And know whatever thou hast been, 
'Tis something better not to be. 

" Nay, for myself, so dark my fate 
Through every turn of life hath been, 
Men and the world so much I hate, 
I care not when I quit the scene." 

Thus strangers to happiness, and steeped in 
wretchedness during their lives, do we find thes3 
enemies of God and of the Bible ; and all this 



FOURTH LECTURE. 159 

misery was preying upon them when they had 
everything- to make them happy, except a sanctify, 
ing faith in the G-ospel. G-o where they would, do 
what they would, think what they would, say 
what they would, bitterness was in every cup from 
which they drank ; they " were like the troubled 
sea when it cannot rest, and the way of peace have 
they not known." 

Let us now turn from these apostles of Infideli- 
ty to the great apostle of Christianity ; to Paul, the 
servant of G-od and of his Son Jesus Christ. No one 
can be quoted who was better qualified than Paul 
to form a wise judgment on all questions appertain- 
ing to the happiness and welfare of man. He was 
born to an inheritance that made him familiar with 
the refinements and even the luxuries of life. He 
was brought up at the feet of G-amaliel. He had 
learning that placed him among the ripest scholars 
of his day ; and he had a vivid sense of whatever 
was most finished and beautiful in the world, both 
of nature and of art around him. His eloquence 
was so powerful, that more than once it awed 
kings and princes on their thrones, and rang alarm 
into the heart of Athens and of "Rome. 



160 FOURTH LECTURE. 

But " what things were gain to him, those he 
counted loss for Christ;" and while with a zeal 
that never waxed cold, he consecrated all his rich 
powers to the salvation of lost men, preaching to 
them Christ and him crucified, wishing no other 
recompense than to see them saved from eternal 
death, and prepared for immortality through faith 
in the Gospel ; he was reviled as a malefactor, treat- 
ed as "the off-scouring of all things." The world, 
for which he lahored night and day, had neither 
wealth nor honors, nor smiles, as a recompense 
for his toils ; and all that he had, and to which 
he could look for happiness in this world or in the 
world to come, was his religion, his faith in Christ. 

What does he tell us concerning himself, and 
the hahitual frame of his spirit ? "Was he a stran- 
ger to heart-fe]t happiness as he went through his 
most eventful and laborious life ? Had he confes- 
sions to make such as those we have just heard, 
of inward wretchedness, a disgust with men and 
things around him that made life a burden ? We 
shall let him, as we have let the others, speak for 
himself. As if picturing the experience of the 
whole christian world, in what he felt within his 



FOURTH LECTURE. 161 

own heart, he declared, " being justified by faith, 
we have peace v/ith God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ; by whom also we have access, by faith, 
into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in 
hope of the glory of G-od. And not only so, but we 
glory in tribulations also ; knowing that tribula- 
tion worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; 
and experience, hope ; and hope maketh not asham- 
ed, because the love of G-od is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy G-host, which is given unto us." 
Nor did this elevating hope fail him under the 
heaviest of calamities. He could speak of perils 
without number which had beset him ; " perils in 
the city, perils in the wilderness, perils on the sea, 
perils by the heathen, perils by false brethren ; in 
weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in 
cold and nakedness ;" and yet, under all these com- 
plicated trials, he can tell us ; " "We faint not, for 
though our outward man perish, yet the inward 
man is renewed day by day. For our light afflic- 
tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 
And when at last he is a prisoner at Rome, and 
feels that he is a doomed man, that the scaffold or 



162 FOURTH LECTURE. 

the stake lie just before him, hear him tell how he 
views both the past and the future of his life. 
" I am," says he, " now ready to be offered, and the 
time of my departure is at hand. I have fought 
a good fight, I have finished my course, ] have 
kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me a 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to 
me only, but unto all them also that love his ap- 
pearing." 

Such was Paul. He drank from the " pleasures 
which are at God's right hand," and was a happy 
man. If he had trials, he endured them with 
patience, and even received them with gladness, 
because sent to him by a Redeemer, who, by means 
of tribulation on earth was preparing him for rich- 
er enjoyment in heaven. In the darkest cloud that 
could overshadow his path, there was a bright 
opening through which he could see the glory that 
was above it, and in which he was himself to be 
arrayed at last as the end of his conflicts. "What- 
ever he does or endures, we hear no bitter com- 
plaint from him that he had ever been born ; no 
sullen onslaught upon time as his enemy. These 



FOURTH LECTURE. 163 

bitter and blasphemous revilings come from those 
who rejected the faith which he embraced ; and from 
a comparison of the one with the other, as they 
have themselves recorded their own experience, we 
have evidence to show how wretched infidelity 
makes the most splendid of infidels, and how happy 
Christianity makes the most tried of Christians. 

To the testimony of Paul I might add that of 
thousands, to show the influence of the gospel in 
ministering to the happiness of man, while bearing 
the trials, or fulfilling the duties allotted to him as he 
passes through the world. Let us now look at the 
closing scene of life, and contemplate the contrast 
we there find between the christian and the infidel. 

Socrates has defined true philosophy to be, 
" the study of death ;" and no one can think too 
highly of the wisdom that leads us to prepare for 
death before if overtakes ourselves, and to under- 
stand the lessons it was designed to enforce, when 
we see it in others. The utterances that come to 
us from the brink of the grave, fall on the ear like 
an echo from the throne of eternity itself. How- 
ever long and closely the vail of deceit may have 
been worn, we expect to find it there laid aside; 



164 FOUBTH LECTUKE. 

for the man must be so far debased by his wicked- 
ness, that little of humanity can yet belong to him 
who is not awed into sincerity and honesty when 
about to appear in the presence of that omniscient 
Judge who " searches the heart and tries the 
reins, even to give every man according to his ways, 
and according to the fruit of his doings." Hence, 
notwithstanding the exaggerated importance some- 
times ascribed to death-bed scenes, it is a matter ol 
general consent, that death puts the final seal to 
the character of the man. The observation seems 
not only striking, but just, that like a man's last 
will and testament, his character is never irrevoca- 
bly determined till he dies ; and as it appears in his 
death, it generally endures in the estimation of the 
generations that follow him. 

The truth of this is felt by infidels as well as 
by christians ; and here we see the reason why the 
enemies of religion are not only so anxious to throw 
around the death scene of the unbeliever, some- 
thing that wears a semblance of composure, and to 
hide from the eyes of the world the agonies of his 
last hours ; bat also, why they so unblushingly vio- 
late truth in detracting from the tranquillity and 



FOURTH LECTURE. 165 

triumph of dying christians who have been emi- 
nent for piety, learning and distinguished services 
to the cause of Christianity. Calvin, the great Re- 
former, died enjoying the most entire peace of 
mind ; and yet he was represented hy his enemies 
as overwhelmed hy despair in his last moments. 
In the same spirit were the name and memory of 
Luther assailed. Baxter, whose praise is in all the 
churches as an author whose pen has been the 
means of eternal life to thousands, enjoyed not only 
tranquillity, but an unusual measure of joy in his 
last illness. Yet he was represented as distracted 
by sceptical doubts in his death. 

We should however bear in mind, that the last 
hours of distinguished christians have not in all 
cases, and as a matter of course, afforded that am- 
ple evidence of triumph which their friends had ex- 
pected, as the fitting conclusion of their previous 
career. In an interview between the eloquent 
"Whitfield and his friend Dr. Finley, the memora- 
ble sayings of dying christians became the sub- 
ject of conversation. Dr. Finley remarked, " Mr. 
"Whitfield, I hope it will be very long before you 
are called home, but when that event shall arrive, 



166 FOURTH LECTURE. 

[ should be giad to hear the noble testimony you 
will bear for God." " You would be disappointed, 
Doctor," said "Whitfield, " I shall die silent. It has 
pleased God to enable me to bear so many testi- 
monies for him during my life, that he will require 
none from me when I die. No, no ; it is your 
dumb christians, that have walked in fear and 
darkness, and thereby been unable to bear a tes- 
timony for God during their lives, that he compels 
to speak out for him on their death-beds." The 
observation of the good man was altogether too 
unqualified. But the prediction, so far as it con- 
cerned himself, was fulfilled. 

There are christians, we may also remark, 
who from constitutional timidity, or other causes, 
have such a deep abhorrence of dissolution and of 
the grave, that they cannot think of dying with- 
out a painful dread. " I am not afraid of dearth, 
but I shrink from dying," was the oft repeated 
observation of the venerable Dr. Livingston, when 
he spoke of his approaching departure ; and many 
a sincere believer has sympathized with him in 
his tremulous apprehension of the struggle, when 
soul and body must be severed. It is also true, 



FOUETH LECTURE. 167 

that men eminent for their religion, have "been at 
times so overwhelmed with a sense of their own 
un worthiness, when they felt themselves ahout to 
appear in the presence of the holy God, that the 
waves of unbelief have passed over them in snch 
strength as to prevent, for a season, that clear vision 
of the Redeemer's pardoning mercy, which in the 
end has soothed and cheered them. The well 
known Commentator on the Bible, Thomas Scott, 
was an instance of such a conflict in his last days. 

But notwithstanding all these considerations, 
the value and the power of testimony rendered in a 
dying hour, no rational man will deny. Every im- 
partial observer must perceive that there is a vast 
difference between the heaviness that occasionally 
oppresses the spirit of the dying christian, and the 
dread horror which, as we shall see, distracts and 
overpowers the dying infidel. We never find the 
christian distressed either in life or at death, be- 
cause he has done so much to vindicate and spread 
his religion. On the other hand, the burning re- 
morse of the infidel is because of what he has done 
for the cause of infidelity, and of the hardened un- 
belief with which he has resisted and blasphemed 



168 FOURTH LECTURE. 

the Bible and the G-od of the Bible. Tell us, if you 
can, of a christian who has died suffering anguish 
of conscience for having clung to his Bible against 
every objector, and against every objection, and we 
will give up the argument. That, or any thing 
like it, as all men know, never can be shown ; and 
if we find, that in the truth-revealing, truth-telling 
hour of death, the christian always cleaves to his 
Bible closer and closer, as his only hope, while the 
infidel again and again shrinks from his infidelity, 
and would cast it from him as the ruin of his soul; 
there is argument here which no one can gainsay, 
proving that the Bible is the book for sinful man, 
and faith in its revelations, alike, his duty and 
his safety. 

The argument too is impressive as it is conclu- 
sive. " The chill of the expiring man's hand," it 
has been said, "is remembered longer than the 
warmth of his grasp when in health." The heart 
must be doubly hardened which can be insensible 
to the voice of the dying. We could point out in- 
stance after instance, showing that the once " dead 
in trespasses and in sins " have been made alive 
unto God, when contemplating the happy death 



FOURTH LECTURE. 169 

of the christian believer ; as the man cast into the 
sepulchre of Elisha, when he "touched the bones 
of the prophet, revived and stood upon his feet." 
The knowledge of these happy results led Addison 
to declare, that "in all history there is nothing so 
instructive as a faithful account of the manner in 
which eminent men have met that trying hour when 
they passed from time into eternity." The senti- 
ment of the polished scholar must have been deeply 
impressed on the mind of the faithful martyr, How- 
land Taylor. When about to suffer, before he was 
tied to the stake, he presented to his son, as his last 
gift, a volume containing the choice sayings of 
those who had been put to death for their faith 
in Christ, as the best legacy he could leave him. 
Few will deny that this memorial of paternal affec- 
tion was wisely chosen; and when the weeping 
son saw his father composed and motionless in the 
midst of the flames, with his hands folded, praying, 
"Merciful Father, for Jesus Christ my Saviours 
sake, receive my soul into thy hands," he had 
another example to insert in the highly prized 
volume, showing how a christian can die. 

Let us now turn to some of these scenes as they 



170 FOUKTH LECTUEE. 

lie embalmed in the histories of God's people. Let 
us place the dying infidel and the dying christian 
side by side. Let us call up, on the one hand, the 
names of men whom we have seen to be distin- 
guished as champions of infidelity ; and on the 
other, the names of those known as intelligent be- 
lievers in the Bible, and who adorned its doctrines 
in their lives; and let us learn from themselves 
what they felt and avowed in the solemn hour of 
death. 

We have spoken of Hobbes, and of the massive 
strength he employed against Christianity. He 
was a man who prided himself highly on his great 
equanimity and self-possession. And how did he 
meet his death? He lived to the age of about 
ninety years, when a christian would have felt 
himself " full of days," " desiring to depart and be 
with Christ." But what does the infidel philoso- 
pher say when he found he could live no longer ? 
" I am about to take a leap in the dark," he ex- 
claimed ; and so dreadful were his apprehensions 
of what he might find in the darkness before him, 
that he added, " Were I master of the world, I 
would give it all to live one day longer." When 

* 



FOURTH LECTURE. 171 

his friends expressed surprise, telling him that such 
a confession was not what they had expected from 
the Philosopher of Malmesbury, as he loved to be 
called ; he replied in the bitterness of his heart, 
" What shall I be the better for all that when ] 
am dead ? I say again, if I had the whole world 
to dispose of, I would give it all to live a single 
day longer." But that single day was denied him, 
and he was forced to take his " leap in the dark," 
though it was the darkness of torturing despair. 

With this dread of death, and consuming anxie- 
ty to escape from it even for a day, let us compare 
the dying sentiments of one or two well known as 
preachers of the gospel and ornaments of their pro- 
fession. James Hervey will always be held in 
grateful remembrance by the Christian church for 
the purity and benevolence of his character and 
the value of his writings. He died at the age of 
forty-four, when no weight of years rendered him 
weary of the world, and when every tribute of re- 
spect and affection was paid to him by thousands 
who had shared in his generosity, and been edified 
by his labors. When he saw his death approach- 
ing, far from desiring to stay in this world another 



172 FOUKTH LECTURE. 

day or even hour, he exclaimed, "How thankful 
am I for death ! It is the passage to the Lord and 
giver of eternal life. welcome, welcome, Death ! 
Thou may est well be reckoned among the trea- 
sures of the Christian ; ' to live is Christ, to die is 
gain !' ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart 
in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation ' " 
To these exulting views let me add the triumphs 
of the seraphic Pay son. He also died in what is 
usually called the prime of life ; and was surround- 
ed by a family, and by fruits of his ministry, who 
had every desire to strew his path with flowers, had 
his stay on earth been prolonged. And yet, with 
all these attractions around him to render future 
days desirable, he blessed God on his death bed 
that the hour of his departure had come. "When 
he was asked, " Do you feel reconciled ?" he replied, 
"Oh, that is too cold. I rejoice, I triumph, and this 
happiness will endure as long as G-od himself, for 
it consists in admiring and adoring him. I can 
find no words to express my happiness. I seem to 
be swimming in a river of pleasure, which is car- 
rying me on to the great fountain. * * * 
Hitherto I have viewed God as a fixed star, bright 



FOURTH LECTURE. 173 

indeed, but often intercepted by clouds ; but now 
He is coming nearer and nearer, and spreads into 
a sun, so vast and glorious, that the sight is too 
dazzling for flesh and blood to sustain. I see. I see 
clearly that all these same glorious and dazzling 
perfections, which now only serve to kindle my 
affections into a flame, and to melt down my soul 
into the same blessed image, would burn and 
scorch me like a consuming fire, if I were an im- 
penitent sinner." At a later hour, and when he 
saw dissolution nearer at hand, he exclaimed, 
" The celestial city is now full in my view. Its 
glories beam upon me — its sounds strike upon my 
ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. 
Nothing separates me from it but the river ol 
death, and that appears but an insignificant rill, 
that may be crossed by a single step, whenevei 
God shall give permission." 

With such glowing words upon their lips, did 
ihese eminent saints pass away from our world, 
seeming, like Elijah, to be wrapped into heaven in 
chariots of fire ; and the striking contrast which 
we find between Hervey and Pay son rejoicing in 

death, and Hobbes willing to give a whole world 

11 



174 FOURTH LECTURE. 

if he could escape from it a single day longer, has 
led me to place their names in immediate proximi- 
ty to each other. 

But we do not here close our recital of exam- 
ples that will serve still further to enforce our 
argument. Let us then turn back from Hervey 
and Pay son, to other scenes which, although they 
may he less attractive, are still fearfully instructive. 

"What might have been the feelings of Gibbon, 
had he known death to be near to him, it is im- 
possible to say. His biographers show us that he 
passed away into eternity without being conscious 
that he was even approaching it. They relate 
that within twenty hours before he expired, he de- 
clared that he " thought himself a good life for ten, 
twelve, or perhaps twenty years ;" nor does it ap- 
pear that he was undeceived till speech had failed 
him, and his faculties were overpowered by the 
stupor of disease. 

But while we must leave G-ibbon to die blind*- 
folded as to what lay before him ; and we must 
fear, to utter his wail of agony and despair, when 
beyond that bourne whence no voice ever comes 
back to the human ear ; we can turn to one whom 



FOURTH LECTURE. 175 

he has called "the most extraordinary man of the 
age," the far famed Voltaire; and in him we wit- 
ness horrors that mi oil t well suffice for both. He 
saw death coming', and felt the icy hand of the 
destroyer, when day after day, it crept up to his 
heart ; and his death bed was a scene so appalling 
that it has few parallels in those pictures of re- 
morse that startle and shock us v/hile we survey 
them. As we have already stated, in his coarse 
and virulent attacks on Christianity, his favorite 
and oft repeated expression, when speaking of the 
Redeemer, was, " Crush the wretch." ]Mo wonder 
that in his last hours, he himself should seem 
crushed beneath the weight of the divine displea- 
sure, as a reptile in the highway lies writhing 
under the chariot wheel that has rolled over it. 
We well know the pains that have been taken by 
his infidel companions to hide from the world the 
agony of the dying man ; but truth has been too 
strong for them. There could be no excuse for 
shutting out the physician from the chamber of 
sickness and death ; and he was too honest to con- 
ceal what he knew, and too universally respected 
for his integrity and intelligence, not to be believed. 



176 FOURTH LECTURE 

It was on Voltaire's last visit to Paris, when at 
the zenith of his fame, and when, as previously ap- 
pointed, he was publicly crowned at the theatre as 
the idol of France, that he was taken with a he 
morrhage that terminated his life. He was thus 
brought into a startling resemblance to Herod, who, 
as we are told, " upon a set day, arrayed in royal 
apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration 
to the people. And they gave a shout saying, It 
is the voice of a God, and not of a man. And im- 
mediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because 
he gave not G-od the glory." No sooner had Vol- 
taire felt the stroke, which he was aware must 
issue in death, than he was overpowered with re- 
morse. He at once sent most earnest messages for a 
priest, that he might be " reconciled to the church," 
as the phrase is ; make confession of his sins, and 
-ask pardon of God and man for his scandalous at- 
tacks on Christianity. Diderot, Marmontel, Con- 
dorcet, and others of his infidel flatterers hastened 
to his chamber to prevent a recantation, which they 
feared ; but it was only to witness his ignominy and 
their own. He cursed them to their faces; and as 
his distress of mind was aggravated by their pre- 



FOURTH LECTURE. 177 

sence, he repeatedly and loudly exclaimed to them, 
" Begone ; it is you who have brought me to my 
present condition. Leave me I say, begone. What 
a wretched glory is this which you have produced 
to me !" Hoping to allay his anguish by a written 
renunciation of his infidelity, he had it prepared, 
signed it, and saw it witnessed, that its truth and 
authenticity might be put beyond question. But 
all such expedients were unavailing to bring relief. 
During the two months of life that followed, he was 
tortured with an agony of mind that sometimes 
led him to gnash his teeth in impotent rage against 
both God and man ; and at other times, in plain- 
tive accents, he would plead " Oh, Christ ! Oh, Lord 
Jesus !" and then turning away his face, he would 
cry out that he must die, abandoned of G-od and 
man; As his end approached, his condition became 
more and more frightful, so that his infidel associ- 
ates were reluctant to approach the bed of the dy- 
ing blasphemer, while they strove to guard the door 
against the entrance of those who might become 
fresh witnesses of the revolting tragedy. Even 
his nurse repeatedly exclaimed, that " for all the 
wealth of Europe, she would never see another in- 



178 FOURTH LECTURE. 

fide] die ;* and his physician, scarcely able to en- 
dure the sight during his brief visits, declared that 
the torments of Orestes by the fabled Furies, would 
give but a faint idea of Yoltaire's agony ; and that 
he ardently wished those who had been perverted 
by the infidel's writings could have been present at 
his death, when they could not have failed to find 
an antidote to the poison. Such was the well- at- 
tested end of Voltaire. It was a scene of horror 
that lies beyond exaggeration, for those who saw 
most of it, all agree that words are not adequate to 
describe it. 

Let us now turn to another example of a dying 
infidel different in many things from that we have 
just contemplated, but not the less revolting to 
every sentiment of truth and honesty. I have 
always considered the death of Hume as described 
by Adam Smith, Dr. Black and others, to be a 
scene of the most flimsy hypocrisy to be found on 
record. It is obvious that Hume's friends, like those 
of Yoltaire, were anxious that he should evince no 
sign of misgiving or fear, and should persist in his 
infidelity to the last. But both he and they over- 
acted so far in the matter as to betray themselves. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 179 

They tell us of his great composure ; of his utter 
unconcern as he sat with them at the card-table, 
knowing himself to he on the brink of the grave ; 
how he could repeat the silly jests which he might 
have with Charon, the boatman sent according to 
the fables of Paganism, to carry the dead across the 
river which was said to divide this world from the 
world of spirits. 

Pitiful gossamer covering of what was going on 
in the breast of the dying man ! P alien as poor 
human nature is, she is not so far sunk as this ; 
she is neither so blinded or hardened. She has 
sympathies that tell of something better, was it 
merely friend parting with friend, for a period, 
they know not how long, and to encounter, they 
know not what. Let us suppose it to be Park or 
Ledyard, surrounded with friends to whom they 
were bidding adieu, when about to depart for their 
travels in the deadly wilds of Africa, and from 
which it was doubtful whether they would evei 
return. Had they been found up to the hour of 
their departure, courting some idle laugh sver the 
gambling table, conversing, in silly jests, with those 
they had cherished as their best friends, every one 



180 FOURTH LECTURE. 

would have pronounced it an affectation so unnatu- 
ral as to be even indecent. And what is death, 
taking it even as Hume viewed it ? It is a seve- 
rance, perhaps forever, from scenes and friends where 
all our enjoyments have rested during life ; it is to 
embark on a dark sea that is to bear us to a shore 
where all is strange, untried and unknown, and 
from which we are never to return. Suppose, if 
you will, that this is death, and that it leads to 
nothing more. Is it an occasion on which a dying 
man, whose heart has ever felt the ties of fellow- 
ship with kindred, or kindred spirits, would be 
found laughing and trifling if he does j ustice to the 
feelings of his own heart ? Never. It reminds 
us of the expedient of the school-boy, who on his 
way through the churchward " whistled aloud to 
keep his courage up^" In a sober and rational 
view of it, it can be nothing but affectation, a 
mask to hide something within very different from 
the frolicsome manner played without. I may ap- 
peal to every one, young and old, learned and un- 
learned, if it is not equally against nature and 
philosophy, to view death as a frolic, to go to it as 
we would go to a frolic, and as Hume wished to 



FOURTH LECTURE. 181 

have it believed that he went to his. No man ever 
did such a thing honestly. He would have first to 
obliterate every feature of his own humanity, before 
he could find it possible. He may act such a part ; 
but it is only acting, and the acting, awkwardly 
performed. 

But we do not so quit the subject. The dying 
man, with all his philosophy, was not able to wear 
the mask without throwing it aside, at least, occa- 
sionally. Affectation is always a tiresome task 
and especially must it be so to the dying. And 
although Hume during his last days may have 
persisted in acting the part of a trifler when in the 
presence of his infidel companions; there were 
others who were habitually near him, and before 
whom the pangs of his constrained and violated 
conscience made themselves awfully plain, and 
brought his death bed into a fearful resemblance to 
that of the wretched Yoltaire. In the hour of mid- 
night, and when, as the uncomforted sufferer ima- 
gined, no witness was near who would tell the 
mortifying tale, he became a different and more 
honest man. He was then, as we are told, at 
times so convulsed with remorse and fear, that his 



182 FOURTH LECTURE. 

trembling frame caused the very bed beneath him 
to shake; his moans of mental distress became so 
appalling as to render it painful for his attendants 
to remain near him, and yet his dread of being 
alone was so great that he would not allow their 
absence for a moment. The evidence of this agony 
in the last hours of Hume is from those who had 
no object of their own to gain by giving it, and 
who are said never to have disclosed the harrow- 
ing scenes till impelled to it by a sense of what 
they owed to truth. When the statement was first 
given to the public, the friends of the infidel phi- 
losopher were challenged to contradict it, if it was 
not true. They wisely, it seems, remained silent 
on the subject. 

I have dwelt the longer on the death of such 
men as Voltaire and Hume, because of their con- 
spicuous place in the ranks of infidelity. I will 
now refer to one or two other names, which, if less 
notorious for their writings and labors against 
Christianity, have still repudiated her claims. 

The famous Talleyrand was once a bishop in 
the Catholic church, and then an open contemner 
of religion in all its forms, seeking office, power 



FOURTH LECTURE. 183 

and wealth under every change of government in his 
country, betraying it is said, all of them in their turn 

On the day before his death he wrote the hu- 
miliating confession, " Behold, eighty -three years 
have passed away ! What cares ! What agitations ! 
What anxieties ! What ill will ! What sad complica- 
tions ! and all without other results, except great 
fatigue of body and mind, a profound sentiment of 
discouragement for the future, and disgust for the 
past !" Such was the deep and unrelieved gloom 
which settled down on the mind of this powerful 
man during his last hours on earth. 

The following painful instance shows that the 
pains of the second death are sometimes felt before 
the first has taken place. To the dread of appear- 
ing before the bar of G-od, and receiving judgment 
at his hands, is superadded a foretaste of the suffer- 
ings hereafter to be endured, which renders the 
dying unbeliever a fearful witness a-gainst himself. 

Sir Francis Newport was trained in early life 
to understand the great truths of the gospel ; and 
while he was yet in early manhood, it was hoped 
that he would become an ornament and a blessing 
to his family and nation. The result was fat other- 



184 FOURTH LECTURE. 

wise. After he arrived at mature years he fell 
into company that corrupted both his principles 
and his morals. He became an avowed infidel, 
and a life of dissipation soon brought on a disease 
which was pronounced incurable. "When he felt 
that he must die, he threw himself upon his bed, 
and after a brief pause, broke out in the language, 
" Whence this war in my heart ? What argument 
is there now to assist me against matter of fact ? 
Do I assert that there is no hell, while I feel one 
in my own bosom ? Am I certain there is no after 
retribution, when I feel a present judgment ? Do 
I affirm my soul to be as mortal as my body, when 
this languishes, and that is vigorous as ever ? 
that any one could restore to me my ancient guard 
of piety and innocence ! Wretch that I am, whither 
shall I fly from this breast ? What will become of 
me ?" Among his infidel companions was one 
who tried to dispel these thoughts, to whom he re- 
plied, " That there is a God, I know, because I 
continually feel the effects of his wrath ; that there 
is a hell, I am equally certain, having received an 
earnest of my inheritance there already in my 
breast , that there is a natural conscience, I now 



FOURTH LECTURE. 185 

feel with horror and amazement, being continually 
upbraided by it with my impieties, and all my 
sins brought to my remembrance. Why God has 
marked me out for an example of his vengeance, 
rather than you, or any other of our acquaintance, 
I presume is because I have been more religiously 
educated, and have done greater despite to the 
Spirit of Grace. Oh that I was to lie upon the 
fire that never is quenched a thousand years, to 
purchase the favor of God and be reconciled to Him 
again ! But it is a fruitless wish ; millions of mil- 
lions of years will bring me no nearer to the end 
of my torments than one poor hour. eternity ! 
eternity ! Who can discover the abyss of eternity ! 
Who can paraphrase upon these words, forever 
and ever ?" 

Suspecting that his family and friends might 
impute his agony of mind to insanity, he told them, 
" You imagine me melancholy or distracted. I 
wish I were either ; but it is part of my judgment 
that I am not. No ; my apprehension of persons 
and things is more quick and vigorous than it was 
when I was in perfect health ; and it is my curse, 
because I am thereby more sensible of the con- 



186 FOURTH LECTURE. 

dition I am fallen into. "Would you be informed 
why I am become a skeleton in three or four days ? 
See now then, I have despised my Maker, and 
denied my Redeemer ; I have joined myself to the 
atheists and profane, and continued their course 
under many convictions, till my iniquity was ripe 
for vengeance, and the just judgment of G-od over- 
took me when my security was the greatest, and 
the checks of my conscience were the least." 

Mental distress like this, conspiring with bodily 
disease, his life wasted away rapidly ; aud when 
his end was seen to be near, and he was asked if 
he would have prayer offered on his behalf, he 
turned away his face and exclaimed, " Tigers and 
monsters, are ye also become devils to torment me? 
Would ye give me prospect of heaven, to make my 
hell more intolerable ?" 

Soon after, his voice failing, and uttering a 
groan of inexpressible horror, he cried out, " 
the insufferable pangs of hell !" And with these last 
words upon his lips, he expired and passed into 
eternity. 

Let us now drop the curtain. We have seen 
enough, full enough to show us how dark and 



FOURTH LECTURE. 187 

hopeless is the death bed of the infidel. Let us 
turn to other scenes ; let us see the christian in the 
hour of death, and learn what his faith in Christ 
does for him when he dies. 

You have all heard of the venerable Bede. He 
deserved the title. lie was venerated for his learn- 
ing, for the purity of his life, though living in a 
dark and corrupt age; and also, for the confidence 
of his faith in the pTomises of the gospel. I refer 
to him, though he lived at a remote period in the 
history of the church, not only because his death 
was triumphant, but because his last days and his 
last labors were spent in preparing a translation ol 
St. John's Gospel into the Saxon language. When 
death was first seen to be at hand, the venera- 
ble saint was engaged in his favorite work ; and 
when he felt that he had but a day or two at most 
to live, he went on, sometimes dictating the trans- 
lation to those who wrote for him ; at other times 
refreshing his spirit and recruiting his strength by 
singing anthems of praise to G-od and the Lamb ; 
and then, as he addressed his remaining energies 
to the yet unfinished task, he would urge, " Make 
haste. "Write speedily. The moments are precious. 



188 FOURTH LECTUBE. 

My master may call me before the lapse of another 
hour." On one of these occasions he was told there 
was yet but one chapter wanting, and was asked 
if it wearied him too much to proceed any farther. 
He replied, " I cannot be weary of my Master's 
work, while I have life to work for him ; but write 
speedily, speedily, for my hour of leaving* you is 
very near." "When told that the work was done, 
summoning his last strength, he exclaimed, " And 
is it now done ? I bless the Lord that I have 
lived to do it. And now what wait I for ; all 
is now finished. I desire to depart and be with 
Christ. I desire to see Christ, my King, in his 
beauty, as he is, and where he is. Glory be to the 
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost;" 
and then expired with the doxology still linger- 
ing on his lips. 

Among the Reformers of the church, as they 
are usually called, I might select many names 
well known for their zealous labors, their extensive 
learning and their Christian example. When John 
Huss, sometimes called, " the morning star of the 
Reformation," felt the chain which was to bind 
him to the stake, placed on his neck, he exclaimed 



FOURTH LECTURE. 189 

with a smile, " Welcome this chain for Christ's 
sake ;" and when the faggots had been piled up 
around him, and he was asked to " abjure " before 
they should be kindled into a flame, he replied, 
" No, no ; I take God to witness I preach none but 
his own pure doctrines ; and what I have taught, 
I am ready to seal with my blood." The last 
words Luther was heard to utter were, " Into thy 
hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed 
me, Lord G-od of truth." Melancthon, when 
about to die, was asked by his friends if he wanted 
anything ; and he replied, " I want nothing, and 
I am looking for nothing but Heaven ;" and then 
gently fe]l asleep in Christ. Ridley and Latimer, 
as is well known, suffered martyrdom at the same 
time. "When they were tied to the stake, Ridley 
exclaimed, " Be of good heart, dear brother, for our 
God will either assuage this flame, or enable us to 
abide it." And Latimer replied, " Dear brother, let 
us rejoice and be glad ; for we shall this day help 
to light such a candle in England, as, by God's 
grace, shall never be put out." 

When the flames of such martyrdoms had ceas- 
ed to burn, the mantle of these holy men of God, 

12 



190 FOURTH LECTURE. 

dying in such triumph over death, has ever since 
been seen to rest on christians " of like precious 
faith " with themselves, and that without distinc- 
tion of name or sect. Bishop Jewel was called 
away at a comparatively early age, when he was 
" in labors more abundant," as he had been " i# 
deaths oft ;" and he died with the impressive testi- 
mony, " I have not so lived that I am ashamed 
to live longer ; neither do I fear to die, because I 
have a merciful God. A crown of righteousness 
is laid up for me; Christ is my righteousness. 
Father, let thy will be done; thy will, I say, and 
not my will. Lord, confound me not. Now 
let thy servant depart in peace. Suffer him to 
come to thee. Command him to be with thee. 
Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 

Dr. Goodwin, an eminent Puritan Divine, ex- 
claimed in his last hour, " Is this dying? Is this 
what for so many years I have been dreading ? 
Oh, how precious does the righteousness of the 
Saviour now appear ! My bow abides in strength. 
I am robed in his righteousness. I am found in 
Him who loved me and gave himself for me. I 
am swallowed up in God." 



FOURTH LECTURE. 191 

"When John Tennent was about to leave the 
world, with a peace and gladness which are said 
to have lighted up his face with a lustre like that 
of Stephen, the first martyr, he took his beloved 
brother by the hand, saying, " Farewell, dear broth- 
er ; farewell all that belongs to earth and time. 
"Welcome my God and Father. Welcome sweet 
Lord Jesus. Welcome death. Welcome eternity. 
Amen," Then with a low voice, he seemed to 
whisper, " Come Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, come 
quickly." 

From those of our own times I might tell of 
Gordon Hall, expiring in the verandah of a heathen 
temple, far away from his native land, exclaiming, 
" Glory to thee, God," and repeating the word, 
again and again, till his breath ceased. I might 
name the calm and sober-minded Evarts, bursting 
forth at his death in the exclamation, "Wonderful, 
wonderful glory ! W r e cannot comprehend such 
wonderful glory. I will praise him, I will praise 
him." I might also repeat the brief farewell of the 
lamented Brown, to our world, when he declared, 
M All is well. My work is now done. I have no- 



102 FOUKTH LECTUKE. 

thing before me but to die and go home to my Fa 
ther's house." 

But in order to confine this lecture within rea- 
sonable limits, I will conclude my selection from 
the constellation which shines so brightly over our 
dark world, perhaps I should say that shines so 
brightly over the dark grave, by referring yon only 
to the following illustrious examples. 

The first shall be that of a man who is well 
known as an able writer, a wise statesman, and 
the enlightened philanthropist. " Come sit near 
me" said the dying "Wilberforce to one he loved 
most tenderly ; " Come sit near me. Let me lean 
on you. God bless you, my dear. We shall walk 
no further through this world together ; but I hope 
we shall meet in heaven. Let us talk of heaven. 
Do not weep for me, dear F — — ; do not weep, for 
I am very happy. But think of me ; and let the 
thought make you press forward. I never knew 
happiness till I found Christ as a Saviour. Read 
the Bible— read the Bible ! Let no religious book 
take its place. Through all my perplexities and 
distresses, I never read any other book, and I never 
knew the want of any other. It has been my 



FOURTH LECTURE. 193 

hourly study ; and all my knowledge of the doc- 
trines, and all my acquaintance with the experi- 
ence and realities of religion, have been derived 
from the Bible only. I think religious people do 
not read the Bible enough. Books about religion 
may be useful enough, but they will not do instead 
of the simple truth of the Bible." Alluding to the 
regret usually felt at parting with friends, " No- 
thing," said he, " convinces me more of the re- 
ality of the change within me, than the feelings 
with which I can contemplate a separation from 
my family. I now feel so weaned from earth, my 
affections so much in heaven, that I can leave you 
all without regret ; yet I do not love you less, but 
God more." 

Among the valued friends of Wilberforce was a 
Lady whose name has become a household word 
among all classes of the intelligent and the good, 
who lived to the advanced age of more than four- 
score years, and during that long life was held in 
highest honor by those of her day who were dis- 
tinguished for rank and learning. I mean the gift- 
ed Hannah More. When she was drawing nigh 
to her latter end, the Bible, and especially the 



194 FOURTH LECTURE. 

Psalms, were her constant delight ; when her 
strength was exhausted by her severe pains, she 
seemed refreshed by hearing them read to her, ex- 
claiming frequently as she listened, " How beauti- 
ful ! How sweet ! How reviving !" When pressed 
down to the verge of the grave by her disease, she 
exclaimed, " What can I do ; rather let me say, 
what can I not do with Christ ? I know that my 
Redeemer liveth. Happy, happy are those who 
expect to be together in a better world. The 
thought of that world lifts the mind above itself. 
To go to heaven — think what that is. To go to 
my Saviour who died that I might live. glori- 
ous grave ! My G od, my God, I bless thy holy 
name. Lord, I believe, I do believe with all the 
powers of my weak, sinful heart. Lord Jesus, look 
down upon me from thy holy habitation. Support 
me in the trying hour before me, when most I shall 
need it. It is a glorious thing to die. the love 
of Christ ; the love of Christ !" 

Let me next advert to one who was famed for 
talents of an order peculiar to himself. The semi- 
fabulous story of a mysterious stranger, requiring 
Mozart to compose a requiem for himself as his 



FOURTH LECTURE 195 

last work, is well known to those who are ac- 
quainted with his history and his music. In the 
touching language of his biographer we are told, 
that when the piece was completed, " He threw 
himself back on his couch faint and exhausted. 
His countenance was pale and emaciated ; yet 
there was a strange fire in his eye, and the light 
of gratified joy on his brow that told of success. 
His task was finished, and the melody, even to his 
exquisite sensibility, was perfect. It had occupied 
him for weeks ; and though his form was wasted 
by disease, yet the spirit seemed to acquire more 
vigor, and already claim kindred to immortality — 
for oft as the sound of his own composition stole 
on his ear, it bore an unearthly sweetness that was 
to him, too truly a warning of his future and fast 
coming doom. Now it was finished, and for the 
first time for many weeks, he sank into a quiet and 
refreshing slumber. A slight noise in the apart- 
ment awoke him, when, turning towards a fair 
young girl who entered, ' Emilie, my daughter,' 
said he, ' come near to me — my task is over — the 
requiem is finished. My requiem,' he added, and a 
sigh escaped him. ' Oh ! say not so, my father, 



196 FOURTH LECTURE. 

said the girl, interrupting him, as tears stood in her 
eyes, 'you must be better, you look better, for even 
now your cheek has a glow upon it ; do let me 
bring you something refreshing, and I am sure we 
will nurse you well again.' * Do not deceive your- 
self, my love,' said he, ' this wasted form can never 
be restored by human aid. Prom heaven's mercy 
alone, can I hope for succor ; and it will be grant- 
ed, Emilie, in the time of my utmost need ; yes, in 
the hour of death, I will claim his help, who is 
always ready to aid those who trust in him ; and 
soon, very soon, must this mortal frame be laid in 
its quiet sleeping place, and this restless soul return 
to Him who gave it.' The dying father then rais- 
ed himself on his couch — ' you spoke of refresh- 
ment, my daughter; it can still be afforded my 
fainting soul. Take these notes, the last I shall 
ever pen, and sit down to the instrument. Sing 
with them the hymn so beloved by your mother, 
and let me once more hear those tones which have 
been my delight since my earliest remembrance.' 
Emilie did as she was desired ; and it seemed as if 
she sought a relief from her own thoughts ; for 
after running over a few chords of the piano, she 



FOUKTH LECTURE. 197 

commenced, in the sweetest voice, the following 
lines : 

' Spirit thy labor is o'er, 
Thy term of probation is run, 
Thy steps are now bound for the untrodden shore, 
And the race of immortals begun. 

Spirit ! look not on the strife 
Or the pleasures of earth with regret — 
Pause not on the threshold of limitless life, 
To mourn for the day that is set. 

Spirit ! no fetters can bind, I 
No wicked have power to molest ; 
There the weary, like thee — the wretched shall find, 
A heaven — a mansion of rest. 

Spirit ! how bright is the road, 
For which thou art now on the wing ! 
Thy home, it will be with thy Saviour and God, 
Their loud hallelujahs to sing.' 

" As she concluded the last stanza, she dwelt 
for a few moments on the low melancholy notes of 
the piece, and then waited in silence for the mild 
voice of her father's praise. He spoke not — and 
with something like surprise, she turned towards 



198 FOURTH LECTURE. 

him. He was laid back upon the sofa, his face 

shaded ill part by his hand, and his form reposing 

as if in slumber. Starting with fear, E mi lie sprang 

towards him and seized his hand ; but the touch 

paralyzed her, for she sank senseless by his side. 

He was gone ! "With the sounds of the sweetest 

melody ever composed by human thought, his soul 

had winged its flight to regions of eternal bliss." 

Such was the death of the illustrious Mozart ; 

and though his religion may be said to have been 

clouded by the superstitions of his day, we yet can 
* 

see how fondly he clung to it, however dimmed, as 
his only refuge when sinking into the grave. 

I will select but two other names. They shall 
be taken from the long list of ministers of the gos- 
pel, whose faith in its blessed truths was obscured 
by none of those human devices which serve to 
distract the mind from the simplicity of its trust in 
God, whether in life or death. Janeway's " Token 
for Children" has made the author of that precious 
little book known to many of us from our child- 
hood. Though he was not a man of great intellect 
or learning, he was a man of seraphic piety, and of 
a most gentle spirit. In a measure rarely equalled 



FOURTH LECTURE. 199 

he had " received the kingdom of God as a little 
child ;" and all his faculties seem to have been 
shaped for conveying truth to the heart while it is 
young and tender, not yet hardened through the 
deceitfulness of sin. He was called away from the 
world, and from the ministry of the gospel, when 
in the morning of life ; but if he was not allowed 
to serve his Master long as a living teacher, he was 
enabled to leave behind him a dying testimony 
that can scarcely be surpassed. When told that it 
might please G-od to raise him up again from a 
sick bed, he replied, " That would be far from my 
desire. The world has lost its hold on me. Oh, 
how poor and contemptible a thing it is in all its 
glory, compared with the glory of that invisible 
world that I now live in the sight of. As for life, 
Christ is my life, health, and strength ; and I 
know that through Him I shall have a better kind 
of life, when I leave this life on earth. Death has 
lost its terrors. Death is nothing, death is nothing, 
through grace to me. I can as peacefully die, as 
shut my eyes and turn my head and sleep. I long 
to be with Christ. I long to die. He then, with 
overpowering emotion, exclaimed, " Oh, help me, 



200 FOURTH LECTURE. 

help me, my friends, to admire and praise the Re- 
deemer, who hath done such astonishing things, 
such wonders for my soul. Come help me, all ye 
mighty and glorious angels, who are so well skilled 
in this heavenly work of praise. Praise Him all 
ye preachers upon earth. Let every thing that 
hath breath praise the Lord. Before even a few 
hours are past I shall stand upon Mount Zion, 
singing the song of Moses and the Lamb. I shall 
he surrounded with companies of angels, and the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and be one among 
them that shall say "Hallelujah, hallelujah, salva- 
tion and honor, and power and glory unto the Lord 
our G-od and to the Lamb in the midst of the 
throne ; and again and forever we shall sing hal- 
lelujah." And in this triumphant frame of spirit 
he expired, anticipating his part in the songs of 
heaven before he had yet been released from earth. 

The other example is that of Toplady, whose 
beautiful hymns, such as "Rock of ages cleft for 
me," have a place in the worship of almost every 
Protestant Church in the world. He was called 
away in the morning of his strength, in his thirty- 
eighth year. He had every thing before him that 



FOURTH LECTURE. 201 

could make life desirable, and yet when he saw his 
Last hour at hand, his faith in the gospel rendered 
his death bed a scene of exulting gladness. " It is 
my dying avowal," he declared, " that those great 
and glorious truths which the Lord in rich mercy 
has given me to believe and enabled me to preach, 
are far from being dry doctrines, and mere specula- 
tions. No, no ; they are now brought into practical 
and heartfelt experience ; they are the very joy 
and support of my soul. The consolations flowing 
from them carry me far above the things of time 
and sense. So far as I know my own heart, I 
have no desire but to be entirely passive ; to live, 
to die, to be, to do, to suffer whatever is God's 
blessed will concerning me ; perfectly satisfied that 
as he ever has, so he ever will do that which is 
best, and that he gives out in number, weight and 
measure, whatever will conduce most to his own 
glory and the good of his people." Frequently he 
called himself a dying man, and yet the happiest 
man in the world, adding, " Sickness is no affliction, 
pain no curse, death itself no dissolution ; and yet 
how this soul of mine longs to be gone ; like a bird 
imprisoned in its cage, it longs to take its night. 



202 FOURTH LECTURE. 

Had I wings like a dove, then would I fly away 
to the bosom of God, and be at rest for ever.' 
Within an hour before he expired he seemed to 
awake from a gentle slumber, when he exclaimed, 
" Oh what delights ! Who can fathom the .joys of 
the third heaven ? What a bright sunshine has 
been spread around me ! I have not words to ex- 
press it. I know it cannot be long now till my 
Saviour will come for me, for surely no mortal man 
can live," bursting, as he said it, into a flood ol 
tears, " after glories which God has manifested to 
my soul. All is light, light, light. The brightness 
of his own glory. Oh, come Lord Jesus, come, 
come quickly," when he closed his eyes and fell 
asleep, to be awaked with others of like precious 
faith, on that great day " when the Lord Jesus shall 
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels to 
be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them 
that believe." 

With the recollection of these examples, so dif- 
ferent in their meaning and spirit, yet fresh in our 
minds, let us pause and reflect on wliat we have 
seen. Death is a change through which every one 
living must pass. "It is appointed to men once to 



FOURTH LECTURE. 203 

die, and after this the judgment ;" and when death 
comes, we see how it is felt to he a test of the man, 
a test of his principles, a test of his prospects in the 
world to come. Let it be remembered, as we have 
before observed, that in the comparison which we 
have now drawn between the death of the chris- 
tian and the death of the infidel, we have allowed 
infidelity to assume the fairest exhibition she can 
make of herself. "We have cited from her ranks 
no names of little credit or little known ; we have 
looked at her strongest men, strongest in mind, 
strongest in purpose, and I may add strongest in 
pride, the pride of being distinguished for consis- 
tency and firmness. If she has advocates who pos- 
sessed a more enduring fortitude and wider fame, 
we know not where to find them. She would not 
desire to produce in this connection, and as exam- 
ples of peace and happiness in death, such names 
as the famous Girondins of France, who in the 
days of revolutionary frenzy, and drunk with the 
blood of a nation, scoffed at both life and death, 
and strewed their impious atheistic songs over their 
own graves. Such men come before us as monsters, 
in forms so misshapen and hideous that they seem 



204 FOURTH LECTURE. 

as if conjured up from the abodes of darkness to 
startle us with the appalling sight of the hardened 
depravity into which long continued blasphemy 
can sometimes sink the guilty offender. An infi- 
delity that would respect even the instinctive de- 
cencies of our nature, would be far from owning 
such blasphemers as examples that redound to her 
credit; especially would she be far from placing 
them on a level with her disciples who are best 
known for high cultivation and enlarged intelligence. 

And now, that we have seen how infidelity 
leaves the wisest infidel without hope in death, 
while Christianity spreads before the christian a 
hope full of immortality, we may well ask, is there 
no argument here to show which of the two we 
should choose as a religion adapted to the wants of 
dying men? There can be but the one answer 
from every one who allows conscience to give it. 
" Let me die the death of the righteous and let my 
last end be like his," was the prayer of Balaam as 
he stood on the plains of Moab, struggling with his 
own convictions, and tempted from his allegiance 
to truth by his love of the world. And ever since 
his day, it has been the repeated supplication, utter- 



FOURTH LECTURE. 205 

ed by men the most hardened enemies of Chris- 
tianity, when they have seen death before them, 
and realized what it is to die. Go where yoa will 
in our dying world, and consult the "saint, the 
savage, or the sage," and you will find from the 
experience of them all, that faith in the gospel of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is himself 
the Resurrection and the Life, is the cnly power 
that can take from death its sting, and from the 
grave its victory. G-rant, if you will for a moment, 
that the gospel is but a fable, our faith in it a mere 
delusion, and that our hope and joy from it are but 
a dream. "What dream was ever like it? What 
dream was ever so blessed ? If we do but dream 
m all that we hope and believe, whether living or 
dying, in mercy to us, let us dream on, let us 
dream for ever. The man that would awake us is 
our worst enemy. For when he ha?> dispelled our 
dream, so joyous and heavenly as we find it, what 
has he to give us in its place but bitter despair ? 

13 



Influence of the Bible on the intellect of Man, 



John viii. 12. 

/ am the light of the world. 

The language of the text is equally simple and 
grand. Like the " wise sayings " of old which 
were said to have come down from heaven, it con- 
tains " multum in parvo ;" it has a variety of mean- 
ings which like the leaves of a flower, may he un- 
folded one after another, and yet are united by a 
common stem. 

The words are used by the Saviour as referring 
to the various offices he fulfils in the works ot crea- 
tion, providence and grace. He is " the light of the 
world," for it was he who, " in the beginning," 
when " darkness was upon the lace of the deep," 
commanded "let there be light, and there was 
light ;" and from that first day of earth's existence, 
it is he who kindles the sun in the heavens every 



FIFTH LECTUEE. 207 

morning that it rises. He is also " the light of the 
world," for, when by our transgressions against 
heaven we had covered ourselves with the dark- 
ness of guilt and despair, and doomed ourselves to 
death, he "brought life and immortality to light" 
by the gospel ; and from the first ray of hope that 
gladdens the heart, up to that effulgence of glory 
which awaits the redeemed in heaven, we are in- 
debted for it all to the Son of G-od. 

But it is to a different application of the words 
that I now call your attention. They ascribe to 
him another and farther office still, when they 
announce him as " the light of the world." They 
declare him to be the author of whatever is clear 
and splendid in the world of mind and thought. 
Whether it be in man or angel, every faculty by 
which we can discover truth, can discriminate be- 
tween good and evil, beauty and deformity, is de- 
rived from hhn. The enlarged domain of intellec- 
tual light which belongs to the unsinning seraphs 
in heaven, comes to them as his gift ; it is a part oi 
his image in which he created them ; and when 
man by his fall from primeval innocence, had both 
destroyed the purity of his heart, and fatally im 



208 . FIFTH LECTUKE. 

paired the powers of his understanding ; it is only 
as he comes under the influence of the remedial 
scheme hy which men " are Drought from darkness 
to light, and from the power of Satan unto the 
living God," that intellect becomes healthful and 
active, and the enlarged discoveries of truth and 
wisdom are made fully available in promoting the 
comfort and welfare of men. This is what I now 
undertake to make good, and in doing so, I will 
present you with 

A contrast between Christianity on the one 
hand, and Infidelity on the other, in their respec- 
tive influences upon the cause of sound learn- 
ing and knowledge in our world. 

You will at once perceive how fitly this forms 
the next step in our proposed lectures on the connec- 
tion between Science and Religion. On a previous 
occasion we took a review of learned men who 
have been the opposers of Christianity ; and while 
we allowed them all due credit for their attain- 
ments in Science and Letters, we proceeded to 
show that their infidelity did not spring from 
their learning, but from causes far from honora- 
ble to the men themselves. We next brought up 



FIFTH LECTURE. 209 

to view, ranks of the learned who have appeared 
as the advocates and ornaments of Christianity ; 
and we showed that if the question is to he settled 
by the authority of names, no demonstration can he 
more complete than that which we have furnished. 

But triumphant as the argument may be ren- 
dered by this comparison of men with men, I wish 
to carry it still farther. I wish to compare the 
systems as such, of these two opposite parties, and 
to show what have been their different agencies in 
the promotion of knowledge. " By their fruits ye 
shall know them/' is so plainly a maxim of sound 
wisdom, that opposers should not question it, 
though it is found in the Bible. We will now en- 
deavor to show what has been done by Christiani- 
ty in imparting a spirit for the cultivation of schol- 
arship and enlarged knowledge, and will then ask, 
what has been done by Infidelity for the same 
glorious cause. 

In this connection it may be proper to observe, 
that a great distinction of Christianity from other 
systems of Religion, lies in its awakening and che- 
rishing, in all its true disciples, a spirit of inquiry, 
a desire for increase of intelligence. Compare the 



210 FIFTH LECTURE. 

Bible in this respect, with the Koran for instance. 
When the Saracens, in their conquests, became mas- 
ters of the Alexandrian Library, then the greatest 
storehouse of learning in the world, they were de- 
sired to spare it from the ruin which every where 
followed their arms. The reply which Omar is 
said to have given, was, that " if the Library con- 
tained nothing but what was in the Koran, it was 
useless, and if it contained anything more, it was 
dangerous and hurtful ; and in either case it ought 
to be destroyed." Whether the story be true or 
false, it developes the true spirit of the Mohamme- 
dan creed. Its whole tendency is to hamper inqui- 
ry ; to warp the faculties of the mind, to confine it 
within the limits of the Koran, as in a pillory ; to 
subdue every desire which would know anything 
beyond it, or weigh the reasonableness and truth 
of what is in it. And such is the case more or less, 
with all false religions. The very heaven to which 
they profess to conduct man, they make to consist, 
not so much in the enjoyments of the soul, and 
the growth of its powers, as in the enjoyments of 
sense, which man shares in common with the 
irrational world around him. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 211 

Not so the Bible. It throws open its every 
payge, and enjoins it upon us to " search the Scrip- 
tures ;" not only to read, but to examine them ; to 
view them in every aspect in which we can place 
them, and to try their truth and genuineness as we 
would try the purity of fine gold. The spirit which 
the G-ospel breathes on its disciples, it expressly 
calls a " spirit of wisdom and knowledge." As a 
fruit of its wide diffusion through the world, it fore- 
tells, that " many shall run to and fro throughout 
the earth, and knowledge shall be increased ;" that 
" the eyes of them that see shall not be dim ;" and 
that such shall be the increase of wisdom and in- 
telligence, that " the light of the Moon shall be as 
the light of the Sun ; and the light of the Sun 
shall be seven fold, as the light of seven days." 
While also it holds up God's word, as the best and 
highest revelation of his wisdom and goodness, it 
carries us abroad to all his works above and around 
us, ana commands us to study their origin, nature 
and end ; saying, " Lift up your eyes on high, and 
behold who hath created these things, and bringeth 
out their hosts by number." And then having im- 
pelled men to the cultivation of their best faculties 



i 



212 FIFTH LECTURE. 

here on earth, it tells us " that enlarged, and ever 
enlarging knowledge is a chief source of joyin 
heaven ; for there " we shall know even as we 
are known." 

Thus does the Bible lay open every avenue to 
intelligence, making it our duty and our glory to 
pursue it. While it sanctifies the heart from sin, 
and conforms the soul to the image of G-od in puri- 
ty and holiness, it enlarges and elevates the powers 
of the understanding ; so that be it the artist, the 
poet, the historian, the philosopher, the statesman, 
whatever the man may he, or may pursue as an 
achievement of taste, genius, or judgment ; we hold 
that the quickening influence of divine revelation 
on his intellectual powers carries him forward to 
an excellence which he never could have reached 
without it. The man himself may not be fully 
conscious of this ; neither is he conscious of how a 
healthy atmosphere tends to infuse the bloom of 
health into his bodily frame, or of how the rays of 
the sun are acting on the air he breathes to render 
it healthful as an element of life. Indeed, for many 
of the blessings most essential to our physical, in- 
tellectual or moral welfare, we are dependant on 



FIFTH LECTURE. 213 

causes of which we have little consciousness at the 
time. And among them do we place the influence 
of revealed truth in developing and invigorating 
the intellectual faculties of men and communities 
of men. 

This, as you see, makes Letters and Science in- 
debted to the Bible in a way not generally ac- 
knowledged. But we do not advance it as a mere 
theory. For proof, we go to facts ; facts so plainly 
written on the pages of history that " he who runs 
may read." 

Here at the outset of the argument, we are re- 
minded of the eminence in letters attained by Greece 
and Home, in their palmy days, though under the 
darkness of Paganism. And most willingly do we 
admit whatever can be justly claimed for the au- 
thors and artists of those distinguished nations. A 
scholar scarce deserves the name, whose heart does 
not warm at the recollection of the enjoyment and 
improvement which he has derived from drinking 
at the Castalian springs, which have been unsealed 
by the intellects of Greece and Rome, pagan though 
they were. But if you compare the whole compass 
of their learning, with that of Christian nations, 



214 FIFTH LECTUKE. 

you will find that in this, as in many other things, 
" distance lends enchantment to the view." Even 
when Rome had reached the Augustan age, an age 
of dazzling prosperity and refinement, her literature 
was restricted within a narrow range. In philoso- 
phy, properly so called, whether mental or moral, 
her writers are comparatively shallow and ohscure. 
In physics, her knowledge was so contracted and 
meagre as even to surprise us. In political science 
and the great principles which ascertain civil 
rights, and should regulate civil governments, she 
knew little, and practised still less. Liberty with 
her, was too much of an enchanting sound, with- 
out a definite meaning ; and under the cover of 
its name, the most exorbitant wrongs were often 
both committed and vindicated. 

The remark has been so often made as to render 
it very familiar, that the branches of learning in 
which Home can be said to be most conspicuous 
are History, Poetry and Rhetoric. But her histori- 
ans are greatly wanting in that which gives its 
greatest value to the history of nations. They may 
give us a smooth, clear, beautiful narrative of com- 
mon events, woven together, it is true, with a rhe- 



FIFTH LECTURE. 215 

torical skill, which but few modern historians have 
equalled. But however polished the style of the 
historian, if he simply tells us, that a great battle 
has been fought, with vast slaughter, and issued 
in the subjugation of one party to the dominion of 
another ; or that a conquering nation has added 
province to province in her widening empire, until 
she claims to be mistress of the world ; the instruc- 
tion to be gained from his writings is comparative- 
ly meagre and scanty. The world is nothing the 
wiser or better from its knowledge of the simple 
fact, whether Caesar conquers Pompey, or Pompey 
should be victorious over Csesar at the battle of 
Pharsalia ; whether it be Antony or Brutus, that 
prevails at Philippi. If history would deserve to 
be called by the high name of philosophy teaching 
by example, if she would furnish records of the 
past, pregnant with instruction for the future ; she 
must unfold the dependence of events on their true 
causes, she must trace and point out the origin and 
nature of the various delusions which have involv- 
ed nations in misery and ruin ; and must designate 
with plainness and precision, the great sources of 
public prosperity and happiness. How little of this 



216 FIFTH LECTUKE. 

do we find in Sallust, Livy, or Tacitus, compared 
with the better historians of modern times ! 

In Poetry and Rhetoric, Rome has a more 
acknowledged pre-eminence. Her Virgil, and her 
Cicero, will always stand on a high pedestal while 
poets and orators are held in renown. But both 
Rhetoric and Poetry are designed, more to give re- 
finement and polish to what is already known, 
than to enlarge the hounds of useful knowledge ; 
and the most fond admirers of what formed the 
glory of the Augustan age, must admit, that 
throughout the whole range of Roman Literature, 
it was rather in the entertaining and polite branch- 
es of learning, than in the more useful and impor- 
tant, that she acquired her chief distinction. 

The same is in a great measure true concern- 
ing their teachers, the Greeks ; for the progress of 
the pupil will always reflect the scholarship of the 
master. It is in fact the spirit of Greece that 
breathes in the historians, poets, and orators oi 
Rome, perhaps mellowed and refined by age and 
experience. And even when you turn to those 
branches of science and art in which Greece stands 
comparatively alone ; to her architecture and sculp- 



FIFTH LECTUKE. 217 

ture as displayed in her temples and her statuary, 
which remain to this day models of taste for all 
generations ; even here, you again meet the great 
distinction of intellect among the ancients. As a 
wise ohserver has said, "their strength was ex- 
pended on the surface, not the nature of things ; 
their skill lay in polishing, not in analyzing. 
They hewed and chiseled the stone into the grace- 
ful statue, or the lofty column ; hut of what the 
material was composed, what were the laws of its 
formation, or to what various purposes of human 
power and comfort it might be applied, they nei- 
ther understood nor inquired." 

But here comes another inquiry, too seldom 
raised. "Was Greece indebted for her distinction in 
Letters and the Arts to no foreign source ? And if 
so, to what nation or people can we trace her ob- 
ligations ? Rome borrowed largely from her. Did 
she also borrow from some other nation that 
nourished before her ? The opinion prevailed for a 
long time, that Greece derived her most valuable 
knowledge from Ancient Egypt. Eut more tho- 
rough and recent researches lead to a different con- 
clusion. Although Egypt must be conceded to 



218 FIFTH LECTUKE. 

have been among the earliest of the nations cele- 
brated in history for wisdom and greatness, she 
has been allowed to have credit for both extent 
and antiquity of knowledge which she does not de- 
serve. She nourished at a period so remote and so 
buried in obscurity, that fable has been allowed 
too often to pass for fact, when writers have been 
describing her attainments in knowledge and power. 
But there are records to show what she was, that 
are now becoming disinterred from the sands that 
have been heaped on them for scores of generations. 
The huge ruins of her chief cities, and the figures 
and inscriptions on the pillars and walls of her 
temples are monuments, showing what was her 
standard in taste, and her progress in art during 
the days of her Pharaohs. And they prove, that if 
she was ever entitled to be called " The Cradle of 
Science," it must have been when Science, owing 
to the feebleness of infancy, required the use of a 
cradle. But when Science had outgrown the ap- 
pendages of bewildering and tottering infancy, and 
had reached matured form and strength, Egypt 
was neither her guardian or her home. Many of 
Egypt's works of art, for which an antiquity has 



FIFTH LECTURE. 219 

bee a claimed that would place them anterior to 
the days of David and Solomon, have been shown 
to be comparatively modern ; while those which are 
confessedly of an earlier date, have marks of an 
age which may have excelled in massive strength 
and cumbrous size, but knew little or nothing of 
finished symmetry or grace. The question then 
again recurs — where did Greece derive the impulse 
which gave her that pre-eminence in science and 
art which once adorned her ? No one denies that 
she derived valuable elements of learning from 
Egypt, Phoenicia, and from Assyria. But it was 
merely the elements. If we speak of her higher 
attainments in such branches as architecture, 
sculpture, and poetry, to which she owes her bright 
fame, time, that great expositor of truth and right, 
that great detector of error and wrong, has shown 
that the standards of beauty on which Greece 
formed her taste, the models from which she copi- 
ed, were furnished to her from the land of the He- 
brews, "to whom were committed the oracles of 
God," and upon whose artists and poets the breath 
of inspiration from heaven was made to rest, ele- 
vating their faculties to an excellence unknown 



220 FIFTH LECTURE. 

among the nations of the world before their day 
Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria, were as accessible 
to Greece before the rise of the Hebrew nation, as 
after that memorable era in the history of our race. 
How came it then that no Parthenon, or other 
specimens of finished architecture ever rose in 
Athens or elsewhere, until after the Temple was 
built on Mount Zion, according to a model given 
by direct inspiration from Jehovah ? How came 
it that no Homer was ever heard reciting his 
strains of poetry, until David, Isaiah, and other in- 
spired men poured forth their sublime verse in 
the Holy Land ? The zephyrs of Attica were as 
bland, and Helicon and Parnassus were as lofty 
and verdant, before Judea put forth her displays of 
learning and the arts as afterwards. Yet none 
of all the Muses breathed their inspiration over 
Greece till the spirit of the most High God had 
awakened the soul of Letters and of Arts in the 
nation of the Hebrews. 

But we are not left simply to this mode of ar- 
gument, conclusive as it might be rendered. The 
careful investigations of our scholars and artists 
have carried to demonstration what appears both 



FIFTH LECTURE. 221 

reasonable and probable, from the view we have 
just taken of it. 

Let us turn to the architecture of Greece, her 
great boast, and a science which as all admit, fur- 
nishes no dubious indication of the civilization and 
refinement prevailing in a nation. No one ac- 
quainted with the history of the Hebrews can ques- 
tion their pre-eminence in this noble art. The 
proof of it is found in a record that endureth for 
ever. Though the Temple at Jerusalem was de- 
stroyed before Greece became fully adorned with 
her splendid architecture, the plan which had been 
given by inspiration from heaven, and according 
to which the peerless structure was built, remains 
written at full length in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
The dimensions, the form and proportion of all the 
parts are there described with even minute exact- 
ness. Every thing that could impart grandeur, 
grace, or symmetry to the edifice, and which made 
it to be called for ages " the excellency of beauty," 
was placed in the imperishable volume, to be con- 
sulted by all nations, and in all ages. And we 
now learn that the architects of Greece must have 

made it their study. Wood, in his work entitled, 

14 



222 FIFTH LECTURE. 

" The origin of building, and the plagiarisms of the 
heathen detected," has placed the whole subject in 
such a light that it can no longer be ignored by 
any admirer of the arts ; nor has the subject rest- 
ed with him. That accomplished and learned ar- 
chitect, Wilkins, has proved by a careful compari- 
son, that the finest specimen of architecture which 
adorned the Acropolis was copied from the Temple 
on Mount Zion. To one of his essays, published 
among his " Prolusiones Architectonics, " he has 
given the title " the Temple at Jerusalem, the type 
of Grecian Architecture." And he has made the 
demonstration as complete as the language of such 
subjects can render it. 

In the Classics, every writer who has made 
himself at all familiar with the Greek or Roman 
poets, can give page after page, to show how they 
have borrowed many of their choice beauties from 
the poetry of David, Isaiah, and other inspired pro- 
phets. Sentiments and expressions found in Ho- 
mer, bear such a resemblance to those of Scripture, 
that Sir "Walter Raleigh considers it as beyond 
dispute that the poet must have been familiar with 
the books of the Old Testament, and have borrow- 



FIFTH LECTURE. 223 

ed from them many passages word for word. The 
close resemblance between the poetry of Yirgil 
and that of Isaiah has been the subject of univer- 
sal remark among the admirers of classical litera- 
ture The subject and imagery of the fourth Ec- 
logue are so evidently drawn from the writings of 
the inspired prophet, that the learned Bishop 
Lowth, after pondering the subject with close at- 
tention, has observed, with that nice discrimination 
which belongs to him as a critic, that he finds in 
this Eclogue such an unusual swell of images 
from a pen usually restrained and correct, that it 
seems to have diffused a foreign coloring over the 
work ; and every where to betray an acquaintance 
with the prophetic descriptions respecting the Mes- 
siah and his kingdom. 

In Ethics, the chief G-reek and Roman moral- 
ists, from Plato down, show an indebtedness to the 
inspired penmen of the Bible, so obvious and so 
generally acknowledged, that it seems scarce worth 
while to do more than allude to it. Indeed, to 
whatever department of science and art we may 
turn our attention, we are sure to meet with some 
new argument to justify the sentiment now becom- 



224 FIFTH LECTURE. 

ing very general, that " the Hebrews drank of the 
fountain, the Greeks from the stream, and the 
Romans from the pool." 

And now we still farther ask : what could 
have given the land of the Hebrews such a distin- 
guished pre-eminence ? What could have render- 
ed her such a culminating point of intellect ? How 
comes it to pass that such a vast store- ho use of 
thought, intelligence and taste, should be found in 
her of which we have no trace in any nation pre- 
ceding her ; and from which the cultivated taste of 
subsequent nations borrowed so liberally ? Prom 
the time that she became possessed of her revela- 
tion from Heaven, as in the days of David and 
Solomon, we find her shooting up as far above the 
nations around her in literature and science as she 
was distinguished from them by the truth and di- 
vinity of her faith and worship. Over and above 
the learning then found in her " schools of the Pro- 
phets," which would be called in our days the col- 
leges or universities of the land, she saw on her 
throne a king, of whom we are told that " his wis- 
dom excelled the wisdom of the children of the 
East country, and all the wisdom of Egypt;" 



FIFTH LECTURE. 225 

whose cultivated genius rendered him a master in 
Proverbs and in song ; and whose expansive mind 
so pervaded every branch of physical science that 
" he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in 
Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out 
of the wall ; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, 
and of creeping things and of fishes ;" and who, as 
we have seen, rendered his Capital so distinguished 
for its architecture as to furnish models for those 
who have since claimed to be teachers of the world 
in that branch of art. The fame of such learning 
and taste we should remember was not confined 
to his own nation. It was world wide, and ren- 
dered the city of Jerusalem, in which he held his 
court, a place of more universal resort for all who 
sought or admired intellectual eminence, than 
Athens or Rome, or Paris and London in later ages 
of the world. Sheba sent her Queen, accompanied 
by " a very great train ;" and her example was 
followed, we are told, till " all the kings of the 
earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, 
which God had put into his heart." Egypt herself 
is named as seeking intimate intercourse with his 
court ; nor is it possible to believe that Greece, 



226 FIFTH LECTURE. 

lying so near to the borders of his empire, could 
have remained ignorant of the knowledge and 
taste for which his capital was so distinguished. 

Here then, we have a great starting point in 
the intelligence of our race ; and I ask what creat- 
ed this resurrection of mind in the Holy Land, 
and among the nation of the Hebrews? The 
banks of Jordan were as green, and the cedars of 
Lebanon were as lofty, when the land was peopled 
by the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, as 
when ruled under the sceptre of the Hebrew kings ; 
and yet while those nations held it, from border 
to border, " darkness covered the earth and gross 
darkness the people," both in mind and morals. 

In answering these inquiries, it should never be 
forgotten, as one of the cardinal truths of history, 
that no nation ever arose from degradation and 
darkness of its own accord, nor until roused and 
excited by some propitious impulse from without 
and beyond itself ; and if you will survey the his- 
tory of our race from the earliest ages, onward, 
you will find that the whole world was sinking 
deeper and deeper into ignorance and corruption, 
until the Most High selected the Hebrew nation 



FIFTH LECTURE. 227 

as a fresh depository of knowledge from himself; 
and having planted them in the land promised to 
their fathers, by direct inspiration made them ac- 
quainted with his being, his attributes, his will 
and his works. 

It was among that people and at that period 
in the history of the world, that the downward ten- 
dency of the human mind was first arrested and 
stayed ; nor is there any explanation either in fact 
or philosophy to account for the up-rising and re- 
covery of the human intellect from its former leth- 
argy, which then took place, unless we ascribe it 
to the influence of his revealed will " in whom are 
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." 
This indeed is the only way in which the wondrous 
phenomenon is explained by the men themselves 
who were the subjects of it. " There is a spirit in 
man, but the inspiration of the Almighty giveth 
them understanding ;" — " Eor God giveth to a man 
that is good in his sight, wisdom and knowledge," 
is the language which they hold. 

Go then to Greece if you will, to find the splen 
did displays of accomplished masters in letters and 
in art. Greece will herself send you to Judea, and 



228 FIFTH LECTUEE. 

will point you to records and monuments winch 
show, that if she became refined and learned com- 
pared with the nations around her, it was because 
Judea had become so before her. Go next to Judea 
and ask her from what source she derived the ele- 
ments of her learning ; and she will point neither 
to earth nor any nation of earth, but to Heaven and 
to the God of Heaven ; and she will tell you, that 
if she can claim the high distinction of being the 
first among the nations to awake the long dormant 
intellect of man, and give it its upward tendency, 
it was " chiefly because that unto her were commit- 
ted the oracles of God." If her Moses was sent to 
be her first and great teacher, to sow in the public 
mind the seeds of a ripe and wide spread intelli- 
gence, it was not simply because he was " learned 
in all the wisdom of Egypt ;" learning which at 
that day was crude, superficial, and more allied to 
the pretensions of sorcery than to the luminous 
depths of sound knowledge. He was not qualified 
for the mission he was sent to fulfil, till he had 
first gone up to the mount of Horeb, and there 
" talked with God as a man talketh with his friend ;" 
and came down, his face made radiant with light 



FIFTH LECTURE. 229 

from his fellowship with the wisdom and tmth of 
the most High God. If her David awoke the song 
of poetiy and music to a higher strain on Mount 
Zion, it was "because his mind was elevated to the 
sublime task, not by inspiration from Apollo, but 
from Jehovah; and if her Solomon made Jerusalem 
the great radiating point of learning and taste to all 
nations in his day, it was because the most High 
G-od " gave him wisdom and understanding ex- 
ceeding much, and largeness of heart even as is 
the sand which is upon the sea shore." 

The eminence in Science and Art gained by 
Greece and Rome, is then so far from conflicting 
with our position that it goes rather to confirm it. 
But if we would see the full influence of divine 
truth on the intellect of a people, as displayed in 
its tendency to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, 
we should view it not in the imperfect and partial 
revelation made of it in Old Testament times. "We 
must consider what it has done since it has been 
given to the world as a finished revelation. With 
whom then, and where do you find the great foun- 
tains of intelligence and wisdom since the com- 
mencement of the Christian era ? I will not wait 



230 FIFTH LECTURE. 

to show what is now universally admitted, that it 
was owing to Christian men and the Christian min- 
istry, that the lamp of learning was kept from ntter 
extinction during the dark ages. I will come down 
to times when, as all agree, knowledge received an 
onward impulse, to which aforetime she had been 
a stranger. No greater or more important revolu- 
tion has ever taken place in the world of learning, 
than the overthrow of the tyranny long exercised 
by the school men under the name of Aristotle, and 
the introduction of the inductive philosophy which 
has usually been distinguished by the name of Ba- 
con. We claim this as a fruit of the Bible, and are 
ready to go into the proof, showing the influence of 
this holy book in emancipating philosophy from 
the bondage of the school men, and in bringing her 
forth not only to enjoy liberty herself, but to give 
civil and religious liberty to men and to nations. 

But I will reserve this point for the following 
Lecture, and will at present allude less to the labors 
of learned men, than to those distinguished seats 
of learning in which ripe scholarship has been 
acquired, and which are scattered throughout Chris- 
tendom, as depositories of truth and knowledge. 



FIFTH LECTUKE. 231 

"Who then are the acknowledged founders and 
patrons of them all, from the day in which Charle- 
magne is said to have given rise to the University 
of Paris, down to the latest seminary of learning 
which has "been called into existence in our own 
young land ? There is no earthly honor to which a 
pure ambition can aspire, higher than that of hav- 
ing created these well-springs of intellect, which go 
on, generation after generation, pouring out streams 
of truth to the world. "Who are the public bene- 
factors that can claim the distinction? Are they 
men who have been moved by the spirit of Chris- 
tianity or of Infidelity? Enumerate them all from 
the magnanimous Prince just named, and see how 
they will rank. 

Did Christianity or Infidelity create the Uni- 
versities of Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, Glas- 
gow, Leipsic, Leyden, Utrecht, Jena, Tubingen, 
G-ottingen, Berlin and others of a like class in Eu- 
rope ? Or to come to our own country : who created 
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Union, Nassau Hall, 
or the other noble Institutions of learning which 
are the glory of our land ? Their founders were 
men who were firm believers in the Christian reli- 



232 FIFTH LECTURE. 

gion ; men, who, understanding the close alliance 
of learning and Christianity, gave their lahors and 
their lives to establish these seats of science for the 
benefit of their race both in this world and the 
world to come. 

And now, in comparison with these bright con- 
stellations shedding their lustre upon a dark world, 
and called into being by Christian men, and as the 
fruit of Christianity, what has Infidelity done ? 
Where are her monuments of devotedness to the 
cause of learning? What Universities or Colleges 
has she founded and nurtured to a healthy and vi- 
gorous growth ? A few years since, she might per- 
haps have pointed to one at which she had tried 
her hand. But the result of the short-lived effort 
was a full demonstration that a seat of learning, 
though patronized by a name of world-wide celeb- 
rity, and though sustained by the munificence of a 
powerful State, dooms itself to disappointment and 
defeat if it shuts out Christianity from its halls. 
Even our youth turned away from the unchristian 
institution as they would have turned from a 
fountain that was poisonous and deadly ; nor was 
it till a branch from the tree of life was cast in 



FIFTH LECTURE. 233 

for the healing of the waters, that it took the 
honored place which we hope it will long sustain 
among the learned Universities of the nation. Our 
thanks are due to the men who have enabled it to 
vindicate its claim to a high rank among Christian 
institutions, by issuing from its halls a volume re- 
plete with sound argument in defence of that Gos- 
pel which many once feared it might have assailed 
with fearful consequences to coming generations. 

Another has been attempted, with indications 
of hostility to Religion so decided and marked as 
to require a special notice. Its founder selected 
the orphans as the objects of his bounty, and be- 
queathed a liberal endowment for their education, 
with a provision carefully expressed to shut out 
from the institution both the religion and the 
ministry of Him who is the orphan's G-od. The 
scheme is among the most unblushing attempts 
ever made against the truth of Heaven. It stands 
out from the other deeds of men as a prodigy of 
hardihood and guilt, when a man sits down, and 
with death, judgment and eternity in his view, 
bequeaths the vast wealth he has amassed, to cre- 
ate a seminary of learning which would tend to 



234 FIFTH LECTURE. 

dishonor the God of truth, and to lead* astray the 
young, whose fathers and mothers are in the grave, 
by teaching them to ignore that gospel which alone 
is able to make young or old wise unto salvation. 
And what has been the result ? For years, to use 
the language of a distinguished Counsellor, "such 
were the strange entanglements attending every 
step in carrying the device into execution, that the 
plan, the scheme, seemed unblessed in all its pur- 
poses ;" and many began to fear lest the prediction 
would be fulfilled, that " while it lived it would 
lead a vexed and troubled life, and leave an un- 
blessed memory when it died." 

But He who has styled himself the Father of 
the fatherless, claims it as his own prerogative, 
that "he disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so 
that their hands cannot perform their enterprise ; 
that he taketh the wise in their own craftiness, 
and the counsel of the fro ward is carried headlong." 
Whatever may have been the design of man in cre- 
ating the endowment, " God meant it unto good." 
Under his over-ruling hand, the devise was made a 
trust to a christian city; and with much credit to 
herself, her municipal authorities have taken a 



FIFTH LECTURE. 235 

wise care that if ministers of the gospel are to be 
excluded from the walls of the institution, the gos- 
pel itself shall be there ; and that all the depart- 
ments of instruction shall be under the care ol 
christian men, who honor and teach the Bible as 
the inspired word of God. 

Had it been otherwise, the endowment had 
never escaped from the various perplexities and ob- 
stacles that lay in its way ; or it must have given 
rise to an institution that would have done as little 
service for sound education as for sound Christi- 
anity. It would have been powerful only for evil. 
" Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of this- 
tles ?" Just as soon can the sacred cause of learn- 
ing be sustained by infidelity. The cold creed can 
warm the heart to nothing generous and noble. It 
inspires no sentiments of enlarged forethought and 
liberality, of love to G-od or love to man. It can 
educate the heart only to selfishness and sensuality. 
If it does not enfeeble the intellectual powers, it 
distracts and distorts them. If it stimulates them 
to activity, the action is wild and convulsive, and 
of course dangerous to the man himself and to all 
around him. There is no regulating power pervad- 



236 FIFTH LECTURE. 

ing and controling the whole framework of the 
soul, and turning it towards truth, as the needle 
turns to the pole. 

But let the life-giving, life-diffusing influence of 
Christianity be felt in the cultivation and spread of 
knowledge, and what a healthful expansion of 
mind and heart, of thought and feeling do we see. 
You may plant the most precious seeds in the rich- 
est soil ; hut if they be under a covering where the 
rays of the sun seldom, if ever, reach them, their 
growth will be feeble, sickly and deformed ; per- 
haps putting forth their pale shoots into every fan- 
tastic shape, yet never rising into strength, beauty 
or fruitfulness. But remove the covering that keeps 
away the genial light and heat dispensed by the 
sun in the heavens, and what a verdant healthful- 
ness, what a ripening strength at once appears in 
the before sickly and imprisoned plant. Such is 
the influence of the Gospel on the intellect of man 
in unfolding its powers, and nurturing them to 
strength and maturity. It is the same word of 
God, which " in the beginning," when " darkness 
was upon the face of the deep," was heard saying 
"let there be light, and there was light;" and 



FIFTH LECTURE. 237 

which day after day, during the work of creation, 
brought into activity the various forms of life, till 
there was produced a finished world, " all very 
good." And " as it was in the beginning, it is now, 
and ever shall be." Throughout all ages of time 
it has been the good pleasure of G-od to "mag- 
nify his word above all his name." "Wherever it 
"has free course and is glorified, "it evokes light 
from darkness; it disinthralls, unchains, and calls 
into activity the previously stifled and dormant fac- 
ulties of the mind. Shame on the small talk of still 
smaller men, that call the Bible a sectarian book. 
It is the book of the human soul, made by Him 
who made the soul; and so made in his wisdom, 
that all its verities correspond with the wants, 
the wishes, and the happiness of which the soul 
is most conscious. It is a glass in which man sees 
himself. It is the voice of G-od communing with 
the spirit which he once made in his own image, 
to wake up its faculties into a resurrection of their 
once departed strength ; and so far as its power is 
felt, so widely as the book is spread, this effect is 
seen upon the learned and unlearned. Look at 

our own age of the world, which is the brightest 

15 



2&8 FIFTH LECTUEE. 

Bible day it has ever seen. At no previous period 
has the holy book been carried abroad, so speedily, 
as if on the wings of the wind ; nor have the re- 
searches of travelers, and the labors of the learned, 
ever done so much in so short a time to illustrate 
its pages, as within the last fifty years. And, as if 
the breeze that bears onward the sacred volume, 
fanned into brightness the before sleeping embers 
of intellect ; as though the book would instantly 
repay a hundred fold every illustration its truths 
receive from the investigations of science ; never 
before did the world see a period of intellectual 
energy like the present. Man now reads the stars 
and suns of other worlds above us, till he seems 
familiar with them as with the planet on which 
he dwells. He finds his way into the deep re- 
cesses of the earth beneath his feet, and brings 
up from the mines, which grow richer as he goes 
deeper, exhaustless stores, which ever- improving art 
fashions and applies to multiply his comforts and 
gratify his taste. He has subjected the subtle va- 
por of steam to his dominion, and makes it bear 
him and his wealth over earth and sea with the 
speed of an eagle. He makes the very lightning 



FIFTH LECTURE. 239 

the messenger of his thoughts to distant cities and 
nations, with a rapidity that outstrips the wind, 
And then, while science is doing all this for the 
more happy and powerful of the human family, 
see what she does for the more "bereaved and help- 
less. She has invented letters that the blind can 
read, a language that the deaf can understand ; 
and who shall say that, having, in a sense far from 
profane made " the blind to see, and the deaf to 
hear," she may not also ere long make " the tongue 
of the dumb to sing ?" 

Let no man say these things are but the fruit 
of the world's advancement in years, and that it 
grows wiser because it grows older. The world 
grows old as fast in China or Africa, as in Europe 
or America ; and what is the fruit of its age in 
those ignorant and degraded countries ! Their in- 
habitants, generation after generation, have sunk 
deeper and deeper into ignorance and misery. It 
requires but a moment's reflection to show all who 
are willing to see, that this wondrous development 
of mind in our day is found where you find the 
Bible, and is found nowhere else. That which 
" makes us to differ " is, that we have the Bible, 



240 FIFTH LECTURE, 

and they have it not. We have it in our secret 
chambers ; we have it in our families ; we have it 
in our schools, and in all our other and higher seats 
of learning. Our old and our young, our rich and 
our poor, our learned and our unlearned read and 
understand it. 

To what fresh expansions of intellect, to what 
new discoveries in art and science, to what greater 
improvements in the power and refinement of men, 
this general diffusion of the Bible may yet lead, 
Time alone can reveal. But we doubt if there be 
a man who observes and understands the present 
indications of mind, its lofty aspirations, its Argus 
eye, its Herculean grasp, who will not own, that 
we are but on the threshold of those greater dis- 
coveries which are yet to unlock the still hidden 
powers of nature, and to subdue and apply them 
still farther to the comfort and improvement of 
mankind. The fabled fertility of a Minerva's brain 
is fast becoming reality and truth in the Bible- 
awakened intellect of man. "What is new to-day 
becomes old to-morrow, because of some still more 
new discovery to which the interval has given birth. 
We are no longer warranted to smile with scorn, 



FIFTH LECTURE. 241 

at projects, because they are new. Too often we 
have done so, creating pain and discouragement t6 
the gifted men whose new inventions have changed 
tne whole aspect of our age, in the rapid spread of 
intelligence, and wide diffusion of human comfort. 
Unbelief in every form, whether it relates to man's 
happiness in this world, or the world to come, is re- 
buked by the Eible. In the Bible too, it may find 
its cure ; for, as we have now seen, wherever the 
holy book is carried, it acts like the wonder-work- 
ing rod of Moses, the rod of G-od's strength. By it 
nations are redeemed from that worse than Egyp- 
tian bondage, the bondage of ignorance ; and in their 
progress towards the promised inheritance, the Red 
Sea through which they pass becomes the scene of 
new triumphs ; and the rock and sands of the desert 
both yield their tribute to man's welfare, when 
touched by this Heaven-ordained instrument of 
wisdom and power. 



The Prejudice that extensive Learning is hostile to the 
Spirit of true Piety, 

Mark, viii. 24. 

" And he looked up and said, I see men, as trees, 
walking." 

At the dawn of day every thing is seen indis- 
tinctly. The forms and relations of objects, great 
and small, are not fully perceived ; and the imagi- 
nation, acting on the shadowy outlines before it, 
often creates needless alarms at that which as yet 
is dimly comprehended. It is not easy to conceive 
the confusion and mischief that must ensue were 
men to act, through the day, on the visions thus 
obtained, and were they not to allow their miscon- 
ceptions to be corrected by the clear light of the 
sun, as it brightens into perfect day. So it is in 
the worlds of Science and Religion. When re- 
ligious truth began to emerge from the darkness 
that had covered it for ages ; not a few of the 



SIXTH" LECTURE. 24? 

learned at first resisted its claims, from mistaken 
and unjust views of what the Scriptures teach. 
And in like manner, while the truths of Science 
were as yet hut partially brought to light, they 
have often been suspected and opposed by Chris- 
tians, as subversive of revelation ; while a more 
perfect acquaintance with them has shown their 
great value in developing new beauties and a 
richer meaning in the sacred volume. The error 
with both parties arises from a want of knowledge, 
from imperfect vision. Like the man described in 
the text, who " saw men, as trees, walking," they 
have no adequate comprehension of the true form 
and the mutual relations of what lies before them. 

It is to be lamented that much of this miscon- 
ception and injustice still prevails with many 
devout men, who look upon science and philoso- 
phy as antagonistic to the Bible, who seem to 
tremble for the safety of the ark of God when it is 
touched by the hands of the learned ; and are thus 
led to look for an enemy among those who come to 
act as friends and auxiliaries to the cause of truth. 
This dream has led to disastrous consequences to 
both Science and Religion ; and it would be a 



244 SIXTH LECTUEE. 

valuable service to both, if the prejudice could be 
dispelled. We will devote the present lecture to 
that object. 

That the apprehension to which I refer is a 
mere prejudice, must be evident from what has 
been already proved respecting the number and 
rank of the learned, who have been, not only the 
advocates, but the ornaments of Christianity. "We 
hold it as fully made out by the names placed 
before you in a previous Lecture, that men of pro- 
found learning, according to their number when 
compared with other classes of mankind, have fur- 
nished their full proportion to the ranks of Chris- 
tians ; Christians not only in name, but in sinceri- 
ty and truth. As we are to judge of the tree by 
its fruits, this could not have been the case had 
learning, in its nature, been opposed to the genuine 
spirit of the Gospel. 

It is, however, by no means surprising that this 
prejudice should exist. There was a time when 
there was not only something, but much, in the 
nature and spirit of learning as then pursued, 
which was exceedingly opposed to the Gospel, both 
as to its doctrines and its mode of teaching them. 



SIXTH LECTUEE. 245 

There was a time when to philosophize and to 
play the sophist, were convertible terms ; when the 
great amount of what passed with the world for 
science, was " science falsely so called," as Paul 
terms it. And there can be no doubt that many 
of the earliest corruptions which defaced the yet 
fresh beauty of Christianity, as she came to us 
from Heaven, sprung from the philosophy of those 
days ; from the impious attempt to unite them, by 
bringing her down to it, instead of bringing it up 
to her. Hence the warnings and declarations 
which you find in such abundance from the Apos- 
tles. "Beware lest any man spoil you through phi- 
losophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, 
after the rudiments of the world." And again, 
" avoid profane and vain babblings, and opposi- 
tions of science falsely so called ; which some pro- 
fessing, have erred concerning the faith." "With 
the same view, after Paul has stated the fact, that 
" not many wise men after the flesh are called," he 
declares concerning the Gospel, that it was not 
revealed in " the wisdom of words," or " with en- 
ticing words of man's wisdom." His language 
gives an admirable description of the philosophy 



246 SIXTH LECTURE. 

that prevailed in his day. The master in dialec- 
tics, to whom all philosophers then bowed, was 
Aristotle. His dominion over the intellectual 
world was absolute and unquestioned, like that of 
his royal pupil, Alexander the Conqueror, over the 
nations subdued by his sword. But while the em- 
pire of the one crumbled into fragments at his 
death, the dominion of the other endured through 
hundreds and hundreds of years, and at no period 
of time had his scholastic sway been carried to a 
more extravagant extent among the learned, than 
during the early ages of Christianity. The great 
object of the Logicians was less to elicit truth 
than to perplex and confound their adversaries. 
There was no such thing as a healthful spirit of 
inquiry. The dogmas of a master it was treasona- 
ble in any of his pupils to question ; and they 
were required to contend for them, not as lovers of 
truth, but as champions of their sect. The great 
objects of research were too generally those remote 
and vain abstractions . which are of no avail for 
the benefit of man, and, even when settled, serve 
only to multiply points of hostility between rival 
schools. Their wisdom was the " wisdom of 



SIXTH LECTURE. 247 

words.'' not of things; much of it was "vain 
deceit,' 1 not the illumination of the mind with the 
realities of truth. 

This being the state of learning in the days of 
the apostles, especially in those parts of the world 
where the Gospel was first planted ; there can be 
uo doubt that it generated a spirit of pride and 
self-sufficiency, a love of hypothesis and specula- 
tion, a contempt for whatever was plain and prac- 
tical, at war with the spirit and truth of Christi- 
anity ; and every reader of ecclesiastical history 
must know that the heresies which afflicted the 
Church in the early centuries sprung, as already 
observed, from this " philosophy and vain deceit," 
against which the apostle so earnestly warned the 
churches. 

But learning is not now what it was then ; and 
had it remained unchanged in form and spirit, we 
could not have shown you the bright constellation 
of names which we formerly recited, of men who 
have been leaders in science, and at the same time 
humble and meek disciples of the Saviour. As 
will be obvious from a brief comparison of its past 
with its present condition and character, learning 



248 SIXTH LECTURE. 

has passed through a revolution in modern times, 
as complete and decisive as ever took place in the 
civil relations of empires or nations. It has seen 
the overthrow, on the one hand, of a philosophy 
which blindly bowed to the authority of a master, 
and spent its strength in speculative theories, es- 
teeming its discoveries valuable, in proportion as 
they were abstract and remote from the compre- 
hension of the mass of mankind ; and the intro- 
duction, on the other hand, of science, which looks to 
the realities of life, which makes facts, ascertained 
by observation or experiment, the data from which 
it reasons, and then shows how its conclusions are 
to be improved for the practical benefit of man. 
The contrast between the two systems has been so 
graphically exhibited by one of the most powerful 
writers of our day, that I cannot do better than 
quote it at some length. In his review of Bacon 
and the Inductive Philosophy he says, " The phi- 
losophy of the ancients was a philosophy of words ; 
ours is a philosophy of works. They taught that 
man was made for philosophy ; we hold that phi- 
losophy was made for man. Their faith in science, 
being without works, was dead ; our faith, by 



SIXTH LECTURE. 249 

works, is made perfect. They prized a discovery 
according as it was mystic and ethereal, and con- 
fined to the knowledge of a chosen few ; we hold a 
discovery valuable according as we find it not only 
sound in theory, but plain and intelligible to all. 
They divided their doctrines into esoteric and exot- 
eric ; the one to be kept to themselves, the other to 
be given to the people. Their constant effort was 
to extend the limits of the one, and contract the 
limits of the other; crowding men farther and far- 
ther irom the temple of truth. We surround know- 
ledge with no such boundaries or barriers. "We 
view it as we view the light; the farther its rays 
are spread, the more bright and healthful the light 
itself becomes. They disdained to be useful ; their 
schools regarded utility as degrading ; some of 
them even as immoral. To be useful to the great- 
est possible extent, and to the greatest number, we 
esteem the highest and best end of all learning. 
Their very fables indicate the same spirit, the 
same aversion to have knowledge applied to its 
practical ends. Prometheus was known as the in- 
ventor of several most useful arts. A.s if in requi- 
tal, they represent him as chained to a rock. We 



250 SIXTH LECTURE. 

bestow fame, fortune and rank, lor useful inven- 
tions, and hold up our Franklins and Pultons, our 
Boltons and Arkwrights, as benefactors of theii 
race. Plato, in his Republic, recommends the stu- 
dy of G-eometry, because it leads to the know- 
ledge of abstract and essential truth ; but declares 
the science degraded, if applied to the practical 
purposes of life. We consider Geometry as highly 
honored when we can apply her great principles 
to conduct the streams of water to our tables and 
our chambers. When Archimedes discovered the 
principles of the lever and pulley, he was a proud 
man, while repeating the train of demonstration 
by which he arrived at his conclusion; but he 
acted like a man half ashamed of himself and oi 
his discovery, when he saw it applied in those 
powerful machines which astonished and baffled 
the invaders of his city. We glory in putting the 
lever and the pulley into the hands of the me- 
chanic and laborer, and in showing him how to 
use them to remove mountains, and convert the 
rock into palaces and fortresses. In a word, we 
employ Science in all its forms to relieve our 
fellow men from the drudgery that once rendered 



SIXTH LECTURE. 251 

them mere machines, and palsied their powers as 
rational creatures : their powers of mind and re- 
flection." 

This is learning from which Christianity has 
nothing to fear, but much to hope. But here arises 
the very important inquiry : "What produced this 
great revolution in philosophy? What effected or 
mainly contributed to effect its liberation from 
its former " doting about questions and strifes of 
words," its former " profane babblings and opposi- 
tions of science, falsely so called?" 

We are fuLy sensible of the truth which cannot 
be too often repeated, that the great value of the 
Bible lies in its bringing to light the way of sal- 
vation through a Redeemer for lost man. But it 
does not bear the less favorably on his welfare and 
improvement as an inhabitant of this world, be- 
cause its main object is to prepare him for the 
blessedness of heaven. Like the godliness which 
it enjoins, it " is profitable unto all things, hav- 
ing the promise of the life that now is, and that 
which is to come." " All scripture is given by inspi- 
ration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 



252 SIXTH LECTURE. 

ness; that the man of God may be perfect, tho- 
roughly furnished unto all good works." Accord- 
ingly its influence is seen in the improvement it 
effects in every power and faculty of man as a ra- 
tional and immortal creature. In our last lecture 
we have shown how it acted upon our race in 
waking up and invigorating the intellect, impart- 
ing to it hoth higher aims and larger powers in 
various branches of science, to which we then re- 
ferred. We may find another proof of its benefi- 
cent influence on the human mind, when we an- 
swer the inquiry which we have raised respecting 
the revolution which rescued philosophy from the 
bondage of the Schoolmen, and gave her the liber- 
ty and the power for good which she now enjoys. 

In its mode of presenting truth to our view, the 
Bible contains in itself a most beautiful model ot 
what is known as sound inductive philosophy. As 
the great distinction of this philosophy, consists in 
its drawing its conclusions or doctrines from facts, 
and then carrying them out to their practical re- 
sults ; so it should be observed does this principle 
underlie all the great teachings of the Bible. It 
draws its doctrines from facts fully and patiently 



SIXTH LECTURE. 253 

stated, and carries them out to their uses in regu- 
lating our practice. In this way the Redeemer 
repeatedly argues the doctrine of his own divine 
mission. " The works that I do," he says, " bear 
witness of me, that the Father hath sent me;" and 
he adds, " Believe me for the very works sake." In 
like manner, does he reply to the disciples of John, 
who sent to him inquiring, " Art thou he that 
should come, or do we look for another ?" The 
reply is, " Gro show John those things which ye do 
hear and see. The blind receive their sight, and 
the laine walk, the lepers are cleansed and the 
deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor 
have the gospel preached to them." This tends to 
explain, why you find the greater portion of the 
inspired pages written in the form of history, in a 
lucid exhibition of what has actually occurred 
among the various generations of our race. It be- 
gins by reciting in varied story what man has 
done and suffered, and thus infers his fall from rec- 
titude, and his departure from God ; his need of a 
Saviour, and the nature of the salvation which he 
needs. It also tells us in various forms, what the 

Saviour has done, whence he came, and whither 

16 



254 SIXTH LECTURE. 

he has gone; and thence draws in conclusion, 
every doctrine entering into the gospel scheme, 
and shows us, from the whole, how faith in these 
doctrines should influence our practice. "We find 
a beautiful exemplification of all this in the Epis- 
tle to the Romans. 

And now, with this Bible in our hands, so con- 
structed by its divine Author in its mode of reveal- 
ing, establishing and applying sacred truth, as to 
have embodied in itself the great principles of in- 
ductive reasoning, we may well suppose it to have 
exercised, a powerful influence in effecting the 
great revolution in learning from which, as we 
have seen, the world is at this day reaping such 
vast benefits. I am aware of the high distinction 
which belongs to one name, in this great achieve- 
ment ; nor would I take from Bacon one iota of 
the praise which belongs to him, as one of the 
great intellectual lights of the world. I will not 
assail his claim to be denominated the Father of 
Inductive Philosophy, as applied to the great prac- 
tical purposes of life. In pointing out its uses, and 
predicting its results, he stands upon an elevation 
which he should be allowed to occupy without 



SIXTH LECTURE. 255 

question or dispute. His capacious mind was able 
to take in the whole range of sciences, and to see 
how they could be made productive of good by ap- 
plying to them the principles which he was con- 
stantly exhibiting in some new and important 
light. The object which he proposed was, as he 
himself says, " not only knowledge, but fruit 
from knowledge, so as to effect the relief of man's 
estate." And most effectively did he contribute to 
the accomplishment of his noble design. 

But as there were Reformers in the Church 
before the Reformation, so was it also in the world 
of philosophy. There were men before Bacon's 
day, who appeared as the day spring of coming 
brightness, as the preparers of the way, the John 
the Baptists of a new dispensation in the progress 
of knowledge. And though in their labors they 
sometimes appear like men struggling to free them- 
selves from chains, or like men groping their way 
out of darkness, yet they are not the less to be es- 
teemed as the fore-runners of coming liberty and 
light. 

Little however had been accomplished until 
the Reformation took place, emphatically known 



256 SIXTH LECTURE. 

by that name ; and it was the mighty men distin- 
guished in history as the Reformers, who gave 
that first gigantic blow to the tyranny of the 
Schoolmen, which set learning free from the iron 
thraldom of scholasticism, and opened the way for 
the spread of a philosophy which all science now 
follows and honors. From the day when Luther 
took the solemn oath, " I swear to defend the truth 
of the gospel with all my strength," and was made . 
Biblical Doctor, he felt himself bound to make a 
full acquaintance with the Bible his great object. 
The Scriptures accordingly became his constant 
study, the aliment of his mind, both the mode] 
and material of his thought. He not only drank 
in their spirit, and their doctrines, but their modes 
of argument, of illustration and of application. 
He felt as they inspired him to feel, and taught 
as they showed him how to teach. He soon found 
how greatly they differed in all these respects from 
the Schoolmen, whom he had formerly studied 
with great care, and who had then almost undis- 
puted sway in the world of learning around him. 
He at once assailed them with the strength and 
earnestness characteristic of the man. "Aristotle, 



SIXTH LECTURE. 257 

Porphyry, the Theologians of the Sentences," he 
declared, " these are the unprofitable study of this 
age. I desire nothing more ardently than to lay 
open before all eyes this false system, which has 
tricked the church by covering itself with a G-reek 
mask ; and to expose its worthlessness before the 
world." He seemed never to be wearied in repeat- 
ing that " the writings of the apostles and pro- 
phets are both more certain and more sublime 
than all the sophisms of the Schools." And before 
long he exultingly writes, " G-od works among 
us. Aristotle is on the wane, and already totters 
to his fall, which is near at hand, and irreversible." 

Language of the same import you find in the 
writings of all the distinguished Reformers ; and 
here I would have it noted as a remarkable 
event in the history of learning, that the coining 
of a healthful and sound philosophy, followed the 
Reformation in Religion, which rescued the Holy 
Bible from oblivion, and placed it in the hands of 
the learned and the unlearned, to become an ele- 
ment in the formation of their minds, and to leave 
its impress on all their modes of thought and feel- 
ing. This was the work of the Reformers, all oi 



258 SIXTH LECTURE. 

* them in their own sphere assailing the tyranny of 
the Schoolmen, and contributing to break it down. 
In this view Bacon has been somewhat fitly called, 
not the Robespierre, but the Napoleon of philoso- 
phy. He built where others had demolished, and 
none had done so much to batter into dust the 
strong and gloomy Bastile, in which human intel- 
lect had long been imprisoned, and held compara- 
tively powerless for good, as those right-hearted 
and strong-handed men, whom Bacon himself lov- 
ed to honor as the champions both of religious 
truth and intellectual liberty. 

Accordingly, as every one knows who is con- 
versant with the subject, it was from the day in 
which the Bible was brought forth from the dark- 
ness under which scholasticism had covered it, and 
became a new and pervading element of thought 
in the intellect of nations which were blessed with 
its light, that you find philosophy and science as- 
suming their new guise, and making strides un- 
known before. You hear of no Copernicus, nor 
Tycho Brahe, or Kepler, or Galileo, till you have 
heard of a Luther, a Zuingle, and a Calvin. It is 
true indeed, that you may occasionally find some 



SIXTH LECTURE. 259 

distinguished philosopher in lands where the Bible 
was comparatively a sealed book ; but if so, you see 
him in a constant antagonism with the darkness 
around him. He is like a star that dwells alone. 
He is not one of a bright constellation. The sky 
in which we discover him is not congenial to the 
display of kindred lights. If you would behold a 
firmament where such luminaries rise and shine in 
clusters, giving and receiving from each other the 
lustre which creates perfect day ; and where their 
influence is felt in a philosophy that reaches high 
and deep into the treasures of nature, and brings 
forth her choicest gifts for the benefit of man ; you 
must find it where the Word of God circulates as 
free as the air we breathe, where its truth shines 
unchecked and untrammeled as light from the 
heavens. You do not find Bacons, Boyles, New- 
tons, Davys, or Herschels, in Spain, Portugal, or 
Italy, but in Bible taught England. Or look at 
France. The growth of her great philosophers 
has been since she broke away from the tyranny 
that chained the intellect under the bondage of 
the Schools ; and the renown of her distinguished 
scholars at this day, as may be seen from their 



2(50 SIXTH LECTURE. 

works, is owing in a great degree, to their having 
caught much of that spirit of a sound philosophy 
which the Reformers caught from the Bible. In- 
deed it is due to France, to remember that among 
the first of scholars, renowned for his struggles in 
behalf of a philosophy new in its principles and 
applications, was Ramus of Paris, who made the 
Bible his daily study, though at the expense oi 
cruel persecution and final martyrdom, and drew 
from it both his faith in religion, and his princi- 
ples in dialectics. Nor did Bacon give birth to his 
" Advancement of Learning," his " De Augmentis 
Scientiarum," his " Novum Organum," until, as 
he himself intimates, the tyranny of the School- 
men had been overturned by the influence of the 
Reformation; and until by a careful study of the 
Bible, his mind had acquired a controlling sympa- 
thy with it, not only in its doctrines, but also in 
its modes of argument, its sources of evidence, and 
its practical application of truth ; in a word, until 
his mind had been clarified by the power of in- 
spired truth acting upon him, perhaps to an ex- 
tent of which he may not have been fully con- 
scious himself. He became the inductive and 



SIXTH LECTUKE. 261 

practical philosopher, in no small degree, from 
having his mind imbued with a spirit of induc- 
tive and practical theology. 

If the world then owes much to Bacon and 
other philosophers of his class, Bacon owes much 
to the Bible, and to the Reformation which brought 
it forth from oblivion. The Bible made him what 
he was, and placed him where he is. Had he 
lived in a day or a land in which the Bible could 
have had no influence in forming his channels and 
modes of thought, he had never become a Sir Fran- 
cis Bacon, though he might have been a Thomas 
Aquinas, or a Duns Scotus, strong in his abstrac- 
tions, and deep in his mysticism. And if we are 
asked, why did not the Bible produce a Bacon at 
an earlier day ; though the question is irrelevant, 
the answer is ready. The Bible did not produce a 
Bacon before Bacon's age, because in no previous 
age was it so diffused and received among men of 
Bacon's class, as to form a leading portion of their 
intellectual treasure, or to have a leading influence 
on their intellectual training. Never before had it 
so become part and parcel of the common store 
among the body of the learned, enriching their 



262 SIXTH LECTUKE. 

minds with the beautiful simplicity of its teach- 
ings. Never before had it reached such a point in 
its spread, as to have either influenced or formed 
public opinion among the learned. Prom the 
groves and academies of Greece and Rome, it was 
entirely shut out. In their wilful ignorance of it, 
they pronounced it " foolishness." True, the book 
in all its attributes of wisdom and truth was 
within their reach. But though " the light shined 
in the darkness, the darkness comprehended it 
not." E eject it as they might, and as the learn- 
ed did in generations after them ; the time was 
however to come, when philosophers who deserved 
the name, would receive and honor the inspired 
Volume. It did come in the days of Bacon, and 
of his illustrious brotherhood; and the Book has 
repaid a thousand fold the justice then done it, by 
creating an era in the history of knowledge, which 
gave her freedom instead of bondage, and sent her 
abroad to benefit a world from which she had pre- 
viously hidden her comparatively scanty stores 
with the selfishness of penury. 

Such then being the state of learning in our 
day, 9-nd such being the revolution through which 



SIXTH LECTUKE. 263 

it has passed, it would be folly and injustice to 
suppose it hostile to the spirit of true religion. It 
is directly the reverse. It is to be received as 
the handmaid and ally of Revelation. "When the 
Reformation in religion took place, the Refor- 
mation in philosophy soon followed ; and the 
spread of the Bible was the great means of ef- 
fecting both the one and the other. 

But further : There are still other views to be 
taken of the prejudice we are anxious to see re- 
moved. It has not only created unjust suspicion 
and aversion against learning, and learned men ; 
but it has at times aroused a spirit of cruel per- 
secution against science. It cannot be denied that 
there have been martyrs to Philosophy as well as 
to Christianity. In science as in other important 
interests of human life, great men do not follow, 
but lead ; and are sometimes so far in advance of 
their generation that their views are misconceived, 
misapprehended, and opposed with bitter animosi- 
ty. While spending their lives and strength in 
discoveries that may benefit our whole race, so far 
from being cheered and applauded as benefactors, 
they are often not even allowed to share in that 



264 SIXTH LECTURE. 

charity that " suffereth long and is kind, envieth 
not and thinketh no evil." 

I might give you instance after instance, show- 
ing that men who have made those valuable sug- 
gestions in physical science which have led to the 
most valuable improvements in the condition of 
man, have been persecuted as blasphemers and 
malefactors, by those who were little inclined to 
rest till they had seen these pioneers of knowledge 
either burnt at the stake as conjurors, or confined 
in chains as madmen. But let us dwell chiefly on 
one conspicuous example. Let us go back to the 
period when the ennobling and elevating science 
of Astronomy was yet in its infancy ; that science 
which furnishes such arguments for devotion in 
every new discovery it makes, as to have led to 
the just remark, that 

" An undevout Astronomer is mad." 

Let us refer to the labors and sufferings of the illus- 
trious Galileo, called by many " the master of Eu- 
rope in science," during his life. 

It was about fifty years before his day, that the 
system of Ptolemy was assailed and overthrown 



SIXTH LECTURE. 265 

by Copernicus, a Canon of the chapter of Frauen- 
burg. But though the proofs were conclusive, that 
the earth moves around the sun, instead of the sun 
moving round the earth ; and although Coperni- 
cus being an ecclesiastic himself, might have hoped 
for the sympathy of his brotherhood ; yet he was 
timid about making his discoveries known, lest he 
might bring on himself the censure of the church, 
if not the pains of the Inquisition. Accordingly 
his discovery slumbered for several years. But when 
Galileo, by his improvements in the construction 
of the telescope, carried his discoveries into the 
heavens far beyond the limits which had bounded 
the views of Copernicus, and had learned how the 
vast assemblage of fixed stars are held in their 
places, surrounded by their satellites ; and thus not 
only proved the truth of the Copernican system, 
but also of the great laws which govern the hea- 
venly bodies, unknown until his day ; perhaps 
being less acquainted than Copernicus with the 
ignorance and jealousy of the Priests, he gave his 
discoveries to the world fully and fearlessly. No 
sooner however had he published them, than the 
cry of heresy was raised against him. The whole 



266 SIXTH LECTURE. 

Science of Astronomy was represented as nearly 
allied to Astrology. The Astronomer was accord- 
ingly brought before the Inquisition, where he was 
told that he had been cited, not to be heard in his 
defence, but to hear himself and his discoveries 
condemned ; and it was only on condition of his 
renouncing them as untrue, and of his promise not 
to vindicate or teach them, either in conversation 
or in writing, that he obtained his liberty. 

It cannot be denied that by thus abjuring his 
own discoveries, he inflicted a stain upon his name 
which can never be effaced. Indeed he had faults 
which I would be far from palliating or excusing ; 
and yet let us not judge him too severely. He 
was not a man of iron nerve. He stood before that 
awful court which had the power of creating ter- 
ror in the minds of the accused, beyond any other 
invention of ancient or modern times. The dark 
cells into which it thrust its victims, and from 
which they never returned, its slow and unsparing 
tortures, had often overpowered men of the greatest 
resolution. The dread of death under less fright- 
ful circumstances, as we may remember, once drew 
Cranmer to put his hand to a paper in which he 



SIXTH LECTURE. 267 

renounced his faith as a Protestant, though he af- 
terwards repented of the deed and died a martyr 
at the stake, holding in the hottest of the flame 
the hand that had signed the unhappy recantation, 
exclaiming while he had power to speak, " This 
unworthy right hand ! This unworthy right hand ! 
This is the hand that wrote it, and therefore it 
shall first suffer punishment." The greatest of 
men have moments of weakness, when they may 
fail in their fidelity to the truth ; and Galileo is 
said to have plead in his excuse, that though for a 
time he professedly renounced the truth, yet he 
was confident that at length, it would and must 
prevail ; that even if the Inquisitors could stop his 
pen, they could not stop the earth's motion ; and 
that other astronomers beside himself would arise, 
who would give currency to his discoveries under 
circumstances when no power of the Inquisition 
could suppress them or retard their progress. 

When set at liberty however, his passion for 
new investigations showed itself to be as strong as 
ever. His telescope was again before his eyes, and 
turned towards the heavens, where he saw proofs 
which tended to establish more and more the opin- 



268 SIXTH LECTURE 

ions which he had been driven to abjure. Notwith- 
standing the danger to which he exposed himself, 
he at once published his famous " Dialogues " on 
the two great systems of the world ; and influ- 
enced, perhaps, by a sense of shame, at the duplici- 
ty which he had been induced to practice, and of 
resentment at the unworthy treatment he had re- 
ceived ; he introduced some strokes of cutting sar- 
casm against the hypothesis which he so fully over- 
threw, and against the men who maintained it. 
The cry of heresy was instantly renewed; and at 
the age of seventy years, this venerable man was 
brought to Rome and committed as a prisoner. In 
the end he was called up to receive sentence ; and 
again compelled to condemn his discoveries as im- 
pious, and to bind himself by an oath, never to 
teach or support them in any way, or in any form. 
As a punishment too for having disobeyed the former 
decree of the Inquisition, he was detained a prison- 
er at the pleasure of the Cardinal Inquisitors; and 
required, as a penance, to repeat the seven peniten- 
tial Psalms, once a week during the space of three 
years. At the same time his writings were prohib- 
ited, and ordered to be publicly burnt at; Rome. 



SIXTH LECTUEE. 209 

"We can easily imagine what would be the effect 
of such a degrading discipline on a mind like his 
— excitable, impatient of restraint, and longing to 
break away and mark out new paths of discovery 
in the wide expanse of the heavens above. It was 
like chaining the eagle to the earth, and compel- 
ling him to trail his wings in the dust, instead of 
allowing him to rise into his native regions high 
in the air. It would break the spirit, and shorten 
the life of the noble bird to have his nature thus 
violated and wronged. Such was the effect of the 
slavish penance enjoined upon G-alileo ; and this 
brings to our view an incident in this melancholy 
history which may well awaken our deepest sym- 
pathies. 

He had a daughter with a mind gifted much 
like that of her father, ardent and aspiring. She 
saw the effect produced upon her aged parent by 
the constant reiteration of the penitential psalms 
day after day ; and as the strange and dark morals 
of that generation allowed, she volunteered to en- 
dure the penance in his stead. The effect was as 
disastrous upon her health and spirits as it had 

been upon his ; but in the devotedness of her affec- 

17 



270 SIXTH LECTURE. 

tion, she concealed from him the inward fever that 
was consuming her vital strength, and ere long 
was carried to an untimely grave ; alike the victim 
of filial devotion, and a reproach to the cruelty of 
ignorance and superstition which had led to so 
painful a catastrophe. The loss of his lovely child, 
with his other calamities, hroke the heart of the 
persecuted sufferer, notwithstanding the efforts of 
his friends to soothe and comfort him. The world 
soon became as dark to him as to his child in her 
sepulchre. He was overtaken with blindness as 
the effect of grief and study ; and at last died, more 
the victim of sorrow and vexation than of either 
age or bodily disease. 

There are other martyrs besides Galileo who 
have fallen victims to the prejudice which I am 
exposing. I have dwelt the longer on his case, 
that you may the better perceive how ruthless and 
unsparing is the war it has at times waged against 
knowledge and intellect. In its unfeeling cruel- 
ty, it has broken down and crushed some of the 
choicest spirits that ever appeared as the bene- 
factors of mankind ; and whose frames, tenderly 
strung, and sensitive to wrong, have quickly sunk 



SIXTH LECTURE. 271 

under the fierce blow of the defamer and persecu- 
tor. Professing to be the guardian and defender 
of the Bible, it has often reprobated the very dis- 
coveries which throw a richer and larger meaning 
into many of the sacred pages. That Holy Book 
is full of types and symbols taken from the world 
of nature ; from the heavens, from the sun, moon 
and stars ; from earth and sea, and all their va- 
rious products. To understand the real signifi- 
cance of these emblems with which the Scrip- 
ture abounds, we must know the nature of the 
object itself, the laws which govern it, and the 
purposes it subserves in the world of which it 
may be a part. 

The scientific interpreter of G-od's works is con- 
sequently to be viewed as acting in alliance with 
the sound expositor of Grod's word; and as one 
among many of the proofs showing how much 
fresh light may thus be thrown upon the inspired 
writers, let us take an example from the discoveries 
of Copernicus and Galileo, to which we have just 
referred, and which awakened, as we have seen, the 
unrelenting fanaticism that distinguished their day. 

"We are all familiar with the figurative language 



272 SIXTH LECTURE* 

which denominates the Saviour as the " Sun," " the 
Sun of righteousness;" and the devout Christian 
should never look upon the King of day without 
thankfulness that he has there shining a constant 
remembrancer of his Redeemer. But the full sig- 
nificance of that beautiful symbol was never com- 
prehended, till we had been taught that the sun is 
the great centre around which our earth is conti- 
nually revolving; not only deriving from him light 
and heat, beauty and fertility; but also retained 
in its appropriate sphere, by his attracting and sus- 
taining power, until it shall have fulfilled its ap- 
pointed time, and then to be lost in that flood of 
light, into which it will be kindled by the fires of 
the last day. This is the theory respecting the sun 
and planets, which Galileo studied and suffered so 
much to establish ; and when viewed as the true 
science of the heavens, what an illustrious display 
is the sun made to furnish of the glory and offices 
of the Redeemer, his people revolving around him, 
owning Him as the great centre of attraction to 
which they should tend, deriving from him both the 
light that guides them, and the life-giving warmth 
that makes them fruitful of good works ; while at 



SIXTH LECTURE. 273 

the same time they are preserved in the way of his 
commandments, from which at times they wan- 
der, by his drawing them nearer to himself, till 
at last they will be wrapped in the glory which 
awaits them, when their fellowship with Him 
shall be closer and more perfect. Compared with 
this copious significance, how jejune and unfitting 
would this symbol of the Redeemer be rendered, if 
the earth were made the central point, and the 
sun made obsequiously to revolve around it? 

This is but a single example out of many which 
1 might quote, to show how those discoveries in 
Science, which at first were decried as hostile to 
the Bible, when rightly appreciated, have become 
the expositors of a rich and divine wisdom in this 
Holy Volume which could never have been under- 
stood without their aid. The very first page of in- 
spiration describing the Creation of our world, is 
another remarkable instance. An injustice simi- 
lar to that which was done to Astronomy in for- 
mer ages, has more recently been done to Geology. 
True, many of the more distinguished Geologists 
have done much to excite a prejudice against the 
whole science they teach, by the rash theories they 



274 SIXTH LECTURE. 

have advanced, and which we hope hereafter to 
show are as much at war with sound philosophy 
as with sacred. Scripture. But there are principles 
in Geology which have hecqme fixed and settled 
so completely, as to place them beyond all reason- 
able doubt. Among these is the creation of our 
world out of another which existed before it, and 
then perished ; burying in its deep ruins, the pro- 
ducts which once covered its face, and which are 
now often exhumed as the fossil remains of a world 
that has "waxed old like a garment;" while at the 
same time, we are taught to believe that out oi 
the ruins of our world, when it shall have been con- 
sumed by the fires of the last day, are to arise 
"new heavens and a new earth." According to 
this theory, worlds themselves are subject to growth 
and decay, like the products of our earth in the 
varying seasons ; and constant change is passing 
on every creature of the Almighty in his material 
Universe :— He, and He alone remaining " the same, 
yesterday, to-day and forever." No one can fail to 
perceive how forcibly such conceptions tend to 
illustrate the meaning of the Psalmist, when, 
describing the eternity and immutability of God, 



SIXTH LECTURE. 275 

he contrasts these divine attributes with the great 
changes that are constantly passing upon the earth 
and the heavens, saying, " Of old hast thou laid the 
foundations of the earth ; and the heavens are the 
work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou 
shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like 
a garment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, 
and they shall be changed : But thou art the same, 
and thy years shall have no end." But notwith- 
standing the beatiful illustration thus given to the 
words of Scripture by this theory respecting a suc- 
cession of worlds, when it was first advanced, an 
outcry was raised against it as leading not only to 
impiety but to Atheism. Farther inquiry, and 
more knowledge among the friends of Religion, 
have since shown that the conflict in such cases 
was not between Geology and the Bible, but be- 
tween Greology and a mistaken and superficial in- 
terpretation of the Bible ; and that the very same 
theories at first viewed with so much alarm, and as- 
sailed with so much abuse, are required both to 
render the Holy Yolume consistent with itself, 
and to pour light on pages that were dark and 
perplexing. 



276 SIXTH LECTURE. 

But whatever may have been gathered in times 
past from the Heavens above, or the earth beneath 
to illustrate God's Holy Word, it is but a small 
part of what is yet to be done. There is a mean- 
ing not yet fully developed in the exclamation of 
David, "Thou hast magnified thy word above all 
thy name." Prom discoveries of Science already 
made we are enabled more fully to see G-od's 
name written in every star that shines above us, as 
it shows forth the riches and power of the hand 
that made it, and robed it in light. It is owing to 
aid from the same source that we can also more 
fully see His name in the mines of wealth and 
comfort which lie hidden in the bowels of our 
earth, as they display the wise Providence with 
which He has treasured them up from ages past, 
for the benefit of our race, in all generations, as time 
rolls on. But there are still brighter revelations 
of his wisdom mercy and power contained in his 
Word. It stands magnified above all his name," 
inasmuch as it reveals a salvation for lost man 
which we could never have undertsood from any 
other teachings than those we find in its pages. 
And if we may judge from the past, as to what 



SIXTH LECTURE. 277 

we may expect in the future, every sun and every 
star now above us, and every thing embosomed in 
the earth beneath us, as they become better known 
through the labors of the learned, will continue 
to unseal some new and precious meaning in these 
inspired records and promises of Heaven's grace to 
our fallen race, 

Then, in a new sense, will "the Heaven of 
Heavens, and the waters that be above the Hea- 
vens ; the mountains and the hills and the deep 
places of the earth," all of them " praise the name 
of the Lord," as each of them brings its offering, 
both to fulfil and to illustrate His Word. May His 
smile rest upon every effort to accomplish that end, 
which is made with an humble reliance on His 
promised blessing. 




9 



Page 16. 



The present aspect of the controversy with infidelity has 
created a growing desire that both our Literary and Theolo- 
gical Institutions would bestow more attention on the har- 
mony of Physical Science with the Scriptures. That able 
and interesting author, Hugh Miller, has the following re- 
marks on the subject in his " Foot-prints of the Creator :" 

" The evangelistic Churches cannot, in consistency with 
their character, or with a due regard to the interests of their 
people, slight or overlook a form of error at once exceed- 
ingly plausible and consummately dangerous, and which is 
telling so widely on society, that one can scarce travel by 
railway, or in a steamboat, or encounter a group of intelli- 
gent mechanics, without finding decided trace of its ravages. 

"But ere the Churches can be prepared competently to 
deal with it, or with the other objections of a similar class 
which the infidelity of an age so largely engaged as the pre- 
sent in physical pursuits will be from time to time originat- 
ing, they must greatly extend then- educational walks into 
the field of physical science. The mighty change which has 
taken place during the present century in the direction in 
which the minds of the first order are operating, though in- 



282 



NOTES TO 



dicated on the face of the country in characters which can- 
not be mistaken, seems to have too much escaped the notice 
of our theologians. Speculative theology and the metaphy- 
sics are cognate branches of the same science ; and when, as 
in the last and the preceding ages, the higher philosophy of 
the world was metaphysical, the Churches took ready cogni- 
zance of the fact, and in due accordance with the require- 
ments of the time, the battle of the Evidences was fought 
on metaphysical ground. But, judging from the preparations 
made in their colleges and halls, they do not now seem suffi- 
ciently aware — though the low thunder of every railway, and 
the snort of every steam engine, and the whistle of the wind 
amid the wires of every electric telegraph, serve to publish 
the fact — that it is in the department of physics, not of meta- 
physics, that the greater minds of the age are engaged ; that 
the Lockes, Humes, Kants, Berkeleys, Dugald Stewarts, and 
Thomas Browns, belong to the past ; and that the philoso- 
phers of the present time, tall enough to be seen all the world 
over, are the Humboldts, the Aragos, the Agassizes, the 
Liebegs, the Owens, the Herschels, the Bucklands, and the 
Brewsters. In that educational course through which, in 
this country, candidates for the ministry pass in preparation 
for their office, I find every group of great »minds which has 
in turn influenced and directed the mind of Europe for the 
last three centuries, represented, more or less adequately, 
save the last. It is an epitome of all kinds of learning, with 
the exception of the kind most imperatively required, be- 
cause most in accordance with the genius of the time. The 



FIRST LECTUKE. 



283 



restorers of classic literature, the Buchanans and Erasmuses, 
- we see represented in our Universities by the Greek and 
what are termed the Humanity courses ; the Galileos, Boyles, 
and JSTewtons, by the Mathematical and Natural Philosophy 
courses ; and the Lockes, Kants, Humes, and Berkeleys, by 
the Metaphysical course. But the Cuviers, the Huttons, the 
Cavendishes, and the Watts, with their successors, the prac- 
tical philosophers of the present age — men whose achieve- 
ments in physical science we find marked on the surface 01 
the country in characters which might be read from the 
moon — are not adequately represented. It would be perhaps 
more correct to say, that they are not represented at all ; and 
the clergy, as a class, suffer themselves to linger far in the rear 
of an intelligent and accomplished laity, a full age behind 
the requirements of the time. Let them not shut their eyes to 
the danger which is obviously coming. The battle of the Evi- 
dences will have as certainly to be fought on the field of phy- 
sical science, as it was contested in the last age on that of the 
metaphysics. And on this new arena the combatants will 
have to employ new weapons, which it will be the privilege 
of the challenger to choose. The old, opposed to these, 
would prove but of little avail. In an age of muskets and 
artillery, the bows and arrows of an obsolete school of war- 
fare would be found greatly less than sufficient in the field 
of battle, for purposes either of assault or defence." 

I would respectfully commend these important sugges- 
tions to all who are entrusted with the care of our semina- 

k 



284 



NOTES TO 



ries of learning : and also to the friends of education who, 
having liberal means at their disposal, might endow profes- 
sorships, to supply the want which is now so painfully 
obvious. Metaphysical studies should neither be dropped 
nor set aside in order to make room for Physical Science. 
But in the present state of the intellectual world, while a 
well arranged plan of liberal education should include both, 
the latter ought to have a first place as to the means provid- 
ed for it and the time bestowed on it. 



Page 19. 



It would be easy to multiply instances showing the hasty 
conclusions by which infidels in their zeal to discredit the 
Bible have only discredited their own reputation for science 
and fair argument. Egypt was once considered a favorable 
soil for the growth of scepticism. It lay so remote in ancient 
history, and the traces of its attainments in science and the 
arts were so imperfect and perplexing, that it seemed just 
what the sceptic could desire, who would "darken counsel by 
words without knowledge." Accordingly its chronology, its 
hieroglyphics, and its various antiquities have been paraded 
before the world again and again, as overthrowing the in- 
spiration of the Old Testament. But now that Egypt has 
been subjected to a more thorough examination by men who 
were competent to unravel her mystic lore, what has been 
the result ? We refer to the two following illustrations the 
more readily, as they have been furnished to the church 



FIEST LECTURE. 285 

and the world by men who were not laboring to vindi- 
cate the Bible, but simply pursuing their own scientific 
researches. 

The first is in relation to the famous Zodiac in the Tem- 
ple of Denderah. The subjoined account of the controversy 
respecting it is taken from the pen of Eev. Dr. Cheever, 
while writing as the Correspondent of the New- York Ob- 
server. 

"I know" he says, "of scarcely any more interesting sub- 
ject. The account of the attack made upon Christianity 
through its medium, and of its signal defeat in the progress 
of Egyptian discovery," is one of the most striking pages 
in the history of discomfited infidelity. 

"I have already given a slight description of one of the 
zodiacs of Denderah, supposed to be an astronomical repre- 
sentation of the twelve signs of the zodiac in regular succes- 
sion. These zodiacal pictures never seem to have been no- 
ticed till the period of the invasion of Egypt under Napoleon. 
The French army and its officers seem to have been prepared 
for an expedition among the ruins of Egyptian antiquity 
with a wonderful mixture of enthusiasm, exaggeration, cre- 
dulity and unbelief. If I am not deceived in my recollec- 
tion, the whole army are said to have been so suddenly and 
entirely transported by the first sight of the temple of Den- 
derah, that they burst into a simultaneous shout of admira- 
tion and surprise. Now the truth is, it would have been im- 
possible for any considerable part of the army together to 

have seen the temple at all; and when first discovered, it is 

18 



286 



NOTES TO 



so hidden amidst surrounding heaps of rubbish, that it is 
only on arriving close in its front, and almost one by one, 
that you get any impression whatever of its grandeur. The 
surprise of individuals was perhaps grouped and generalized, 
through the use of an allowable figure of speech, by the his- 
torian of the expedition, into its supposable results, if the 
whole army could have witnessed the spectacle together. 

"General Desaix first observed the planisphere or circular 
zodiac in the ceiling of one of the halls of the temple. Then 
the rectangular sculptured zodiac which I have described 
was discovered, and afterwards two other rectangular zodiacs 
were found by the Champollions in the temples of Esneh, 
some distance above Thebes. They were copied, engraved, 
published to the world, and as it was every where taken for 
granted that these temples and their sculptures were the gen- 
uine remains of ancient Egypt, science and infidelity together 
assumed that they afforded astronomical observations of the 
state of the heavens in the most remote periods. It was ap. 
parently demonstrated that the celestial phenomena exhibited, 
ran back from 4500 to 6500 years, and that the zodiacal sys- 
tem to which they belonged must have a date vastly beyond 
the Mosaic era of creation, at least fifteen thousand years ago. 

" The assumptions of these infidel speculators were after- 
wards proved ridiculously false; but even at that period 
there were not wanting able men of great learning, among 
whom appeared the celebrated antiquarian Yisconti, to de- 
fend the truth of revelation even on the ground of those as- 
sumptions ; that is, taking the zodiacs as true astronomical 



FIRST LECTURE. 287 

monuments; and they proved, by equally conclusive calcu- 
lations, that the monstrous antiquity assigned must be re- 
duced within the limits of one or two centuries before the 
Christian era, 

"Here the subject rested for a time, till in 1822 the plan- 
isphere of Denderah having been detached by a French 
traveller from the ceiling of the temple, was transported to 
the sea, disembarked at Marseilles, carried to Paris, purchased 
by the king for 150,000 francs, and placed for exhibition in 
the Louvre. Here it not only attracted multitudes of visitors, 
but became the subject anew of profound study and specula- 
tion among learned men. Mathematicians and astronomers 
sought to bring the results of their laborious backward cah 
culations into a correspondency with that period of the world 
when the zodiac in question was supposed to have been 
copied from the actual appearances in the heavens. 

"In a letter to the editor of the Revue Enc?jcIo]jedique ) in 
August 1822, Champollion reminded those bold speculators 
on the monument of Denderah, that a precise knowledge of 
astronomical science, as it was understood by the ancient 
Egyptians, with all its errors, was as absolutely necessary to 
any just conclusion, as the most exact and learned theory of 
modern astronomy. • Egyptian astronomy having been inti- 
mately blended with religion and astrology, mere objects of 
worship might easily be mistaken for an astronomical sign, 
and a mere symbolical representation for a real object. But 
neither this reproof, nor the opinion of learned archaeologists 
who attributed to the era of the zodiac in question antiquity 



288 



NOTES TO 



no greater than that of the Eoman dominion in Egypt, had 
any weight against the pretended exactness of the calcula- 
tions of learned astronomers. The infidelity of Dupuis' book 
on the origin of all forms of religion, received a new impulse, 
was spread about in small pamphlets, and was admitted un- 
checked in all companies. 

"So far, however, as it was built upon Egyptian monu- 
ments, it lasted but a little while. Suddenly the discovery 
of a single word disgraced and annihilated the whole of it 
In the use of his phonetic alphabet, the younger Champol- 
lion found upon the planisphere of Denderah the Eoman ti- 
tle of Emperor, and in continuing his investigations on the 
temple itself, he found the titles, names, and surnames of the 
emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian ! Upon 
the portico of another temple, supposed to have been many 
centuries older than even that of Denderah, he found the 
names of the Eoman Emperors Claudius and Antoninus 
Pius ! Here was a triumph indeed, for there was no impugn- 
ing the discovery, no resisting the evidence of the temples 
themselves, and all the long and laborious calculations of 
those learned infidels were defeated in a moment. They 
must have been singularly abashed, with all their boldness, 
looking a good deal like that creature found once 'squat like 
a toad, close at the ear of Eve,'' whom the spear of Ithuriel 
touched lightly, and 'returned of force, discovered and sur- 
prised, to his own likeness.' If the poet Cowper had been 
living, he had gained a perfect illustration to add to his pic- 
ture of those, 



FIRST LECTURE. 



289 



w Who drill and bore 

The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That he who made it and revealed its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age." 

"But this drilling and boring was nothing to the folly of 
men who thought to overturn Christianity itself by scientific 
calculations based on the supposed antiquity of a horoscope 
of heathen and pagan divinities, a monument of mingled 
astrology, mythology and astronomy ! Inasmuch as the zo- 
diac in the temple at Esneh appeared to commence with the 
sign of the Virgin, they argued an antiquity for that temple 
of between 2700 and 3000 years before Christ! 

"This carried men's minds back to a period several cen- 
turies before the deluge, and supposed the existence then in 
Egypt of astronomical and architectural science already in 
perfection, the monuments of which remained down to mod- 
ern times, uninterrupted and uninjured even by the destruc- 
tion of the world, as recorded in the Scriptures. It was a 
good opportunity for scoffers to build their infidelity into 
something like a system, and they were allowed, in the 
Providence of God, to do this just thoroughly enough and 
long enough, fully to display their presumption, their malig- 
nity and their ignorance; and then, at the touch of truth 
their discomfiture was as easy and as palpable as the shoot- 
ing of a ray of light. An inscription discovered by Cham- 
pollion proved the zodiac in question to have belonged either 



290 



NOTES TO 



to the reign of Antoninus or of Adrian. Even previous to 
this, Messrs. Huyot and Gau, distinguished French artists, by 
the measurement and critical examination of the edifices ol 
Egypt and those of Nubia had come to the certain conclusion 
that many among them were constructed and sculptured in 
the time of the Greeks and Eomans. 

"Letronne, a learned French academician, came to the 
same conclusions with Champollion by the examination of 
the temples and of various inscriptions. Pursuing his re- 
searches, he even found, at length, a zodiac painted upon a 
mummy-coffin belonging to the time of Trajan, and came to 
the conclusion that none of the representations of this nature 
upon Egj^ptian monuments have any higher antiquity than 
the epoch of the Eoman emperors, and that so far from hav- 
ing any relation to astronomical science, they are mere orna- 
ments of judicial astrology, or schemes of nativity, so called 
by the astrologists, complimentary to the destinies of the reign- 
ing emperors. So the bubble of infidelity burst, like a South 
Sea speculation, and the vaunted Egyptian zodiacs lost nearly 
all their importance. " They are nothing more," said M. Le- 
tronne, "than simple objects of curiosity, which may furnish 
the artist and the antiquary with the means of making a few 
collations, but which will hereafter present no object for truly 
philosophical research ; for instead of concealing, as was ex- 
pected, the secret of a science which had reached its perfec- 
tion even before the deluge, they are merely a representation 
of absurd reveries, and a testimony still living of one of the 
follies which have most disgraced the human mind„ n 



FIRST LECTURE. 



291 



The next example showing how the progress of discov- 
ery in Egypt has turned the tables on infidelity, relates to 
the cultivation of the vine in that country ; and the incidents 
as related by W. Cooke Taylor in his work entitled "The 
natural history of Society," show how even the learned de- 
fenders of Christianity may be misled by these imperfect dis- 
coveries ; and that when perplexities arise under such ques- 
tions, it is our duty to wait in patience, till time shall be al- 
lowed to make the more perfect investigations which may 
put the whole truth in our possession. "He that belie veth 
shall not make haste." 

"The Books of Genesis, and Exodus," says Taylor, "con- 
tain incidental notices of the condition of Egypt, by which we 
are enabled to estimate pretty accurately the progress of hu- 
manity at a remote age in the valley of the Kile ; and these 
notices have recently derived unexpected confirmation from 
modern discoveries — for the monuments brought to light in 
Egypt confirm the accuracy of Scripture in every particular, 
and satisfactorily refute any counter-statements which had 

previously been allowed to rank as contradictory authorities. 
" One remarkable instance of this new evidence for the 

accuracy of the Pentateuch, will serve fitly to introduce our 
examination of the Scriptural statements respecting the civ- 
ilization of Egypt. 

"In the last century the Books of Moses were often at- 
tacked, and their authenticity impugned, because they men- 
tion the existence of vineyards, grapes, and consequently of 
wine, in Egypt ; for Herodotus expressly declares there were 



292 



NOTES TO 



no vineyards in Egypt, and Plutarch, avers that the natives 
of that country abhorred wine, as being the blood of those 
who rebelled against the gods. This authority appeared 
conclusive, not merely to the sceptics who impugned the ve- 
racity of the Pentateuch, but even to the learned Michaelis, 
who concluded that the use of wine was enjoined in the sac- 
rifice for the purpose of making a broad distinction between 
the religious usages of the Israelites and of the Egyptians. 
The monuments opened by modern research have decided 
the controversy in favor of the Jewish Legislator. In the 
subterranean vaults at Eilithyia, every part of the processes 
connected with the dressing and tending of the vine are 
faithfully delineated ; the trellices on which the vines were 
trained, the care with which they were watered, the collection 
of the fruit, the treading of the wine-press, and the stowing 
of the wine in amphora, or vases, are there painted to the 
life ; and additional processes of extracting the juice from 
the grape are represented, which seem to have been peculiar 
to the Egyptian people. Mr. Jomard adds, that the remains 
of amphorae, or wine vessels, have been found in the ruins 
of old Egyptian cities, which are still encrusted with the 
tartar deposited by the wine. It is not necessary to account 
for the error into which Herodotus has fallen; he wrote long 
after Egypt had been distracted by civil wars, and then sub- 
dued by the Persians ; calamities quite sufficient to account 
for the disappearance of such a highly artificial cultivation 
as that of the vine must have been in Egypt. His statement 
is most probably correct, if it be limited to the period when 



FIRST LECTURE. 293 

Herodotus wrote ; and thus viewed, it becomes inportant 
evidence for the superior antiquity both of the Bible and the 
Egyptian monuments." 

Much as has been done by the learned to bring truth to 
light respecting the lands where the Bible lays its scenes, we 
are persuaded that they are only at the beginning of their 
work. They are yet on the surface, and the deeper they go 
in the exhumation of the ruins that tell of former times, they 
are furnishing new and indisputable evidence showing the 
truth of sacred history. The Champollions, the Layards 
and others of a kindred ambition are among the most valua- 
ble expositors of the Bible. Dr. Eobson in his Lectures to 
young men, has well remarked — "Had Yoltaire been now 
alive, he would not have ventured to put the sneering ques- 
tion, how, and on what materials, the Hebrew law-giver 
would write the Pentateuch ; for it is proved that papyrus 
was in common use for writing in his time. Nor would he 
have tauntingly asked how, after an interval of a thousand 
years, Hilkiah could find in the temple of Jerusalem the au- 
tograph of the law ; for writings and contracts on papyrus, 
as old as the times of the Pharaohs, still exist, and are still 
legible. Nor would he have insinuated against Ezra the 
charge of having forged the sacred books which he collect- 
ed; for the written and monumental history of Egj^pt so 
coincides with these books, in dates and facts, as to demon- 
strate that they could not be the work of imposture. The 
remark respecting this celebrated infidel, made by Benjamin 



294 NOTES TO 

Constant, an eminent French philosopher, who had aban- 
doned infidel opinions in consequence of the numberless 
difficulties which the facts of science oppose to scepticism, is 
very pungent : ' He who would be gay with Yoltaire, at the 
expense of Ezekiel and Genesis, must unite two things, 
which will make his gaiety sufficiently melancholy — igno- 
rance the most profound, and frivolity the most deplorable.' " 

Page 30. 

The change that has taken place since Yoltaire's day 
among the leading minds of the French nation is very mark 
ed, and promisss happy results. The able writer of the fol- 
lowing paragraph may have been too sanguine in his hopes, 
but there is much truth in his remarks. Having referred to 
the sentiment of reverence for Christianity, which is so plainly 
avowed by De Tocqueville in his Histoire Philosophiquo 
du Eegne de Louis XY. he proceeds. 

"It is a remarkable and most consolatory circumstance, 
that these just and enlightened views on the subject of re- 
ligion, and its beneficial influence on society, are now enter- 
tained by all the deepest thinkers and most brilliant writers 
in France. There is not an intellect which rises to a certain 
level now in that country — not a name which will be known 
a hundred years hence, which is not thoroughly Christian in 
its principles. That, at least, is one blessing which has re- 
sulted from the Revolution. Chateaubriand, Gruizot, Lamar, 
tine, Yillemain, De Tocqueville, Michelet, Sismondi, Ama- 
dee, Thierry, Beranger, Barante, belong to this bright band. 



FIRST LECTURE. 



295 



When such men, differing so wide] y in every other respect, 
are leagued together in defence of Christianity, we may re- 
gard as a passing evil whatever profligacy the works of Vic- 
tor Hugo, Eugene Sue, and Sand, pour forth upon the Pa- 
risian world and middle classes throughout France. They, 
no doubt, indicate clearly enough the state of general opinion 
at this time. But what then? Their great compeers, the 
giants of thought, foreshadow what it will be. The profligate 
novels, licentious drama, and irreligious opinions of the mid- 
dle class now in France, are the result of the infidelity and 
wickedness which produced the Revolution. The opinions 
of the great men who have succeeded the school of the En- 
cyclopedic, who have been taught by the suffering it pro- 
duced, will form the character of a future generation. Pub- 
lic opinion, of which we hear so much, is never anything 
else than the re-echo of the thoughts of a few great men 
half a century before. It takes that time for ideas to flow 
down from the elevated to the inferior level. The great 
never adopt, they only originate. Their chief efforts are 
always made in opposition to the prevailing opinions by 
which they are surrounded. Thence it is that a powerful 
mind is always uneasy when it is not in the minority on any 
subject which excites general attention." 

Page 40. 

I have been told that when these Lectures were del ivered, 
I was thought by some of my hearers to have been too un . 



296 



NOTES TO 



sparing in my strictures on Gibbon. Keflection has confirm- 
ed me in the belief that I am far from having done him in- 
justice. The most severe of my censures are little more than 
a reiteration, perhaps I should say condensation, of what has 
been previously said by men who had weighed, with great 
care, both the man and his writings. 

Whatever may have been the predilections or prejudices 
of Professor Porson, the famous Greek scholar, he was cer- 
tainly far from being over-scrupulous in matters of religion ; 
yet in his criticism on "The Decline and Fall," he tells us, 

"Mr. Gibbon's industry is indefatigable, his accuracy 
scrupulous, his reading, which is sometimes ostentatiously 
displayed, immense ; his attention always awake, his memory 
retentive, his style emphatic and expressive, his sentences har- 
monious, his reflections just and profound; he pleads elo- 
quently for the rights of mankind and the duty of toleration ; 
nor does his humanity ever slumber unless where women 
are ravished or the Christians persecuted. He often makes, 
when he cannot readily find, an occasion to insult our reli- 
gion, which he hates so cordially that he might seem to re- 
venge some personal injury. Such is his eagerness in the 
cause, that he stoops to the most despicable pun, or to the 
most awkward perversion of language, for the pleasure of 
turning the Scripture into ribaldry, or of calling Jesus an 
impostor. Though his style is, in general, correct and ele- 
gant, he sometimes draws out 'the thread of his verbosity 
finer than the staple of his argument.' In endeavoring to 
avoid vulgar terms, he too frequently dignifies trifles, and 



FIRST LECTURE. 297 

slothes common thoughts in a splendid dress that would be 
rich enough for the noblest ideas. In short, we are too often 
reminded of that great man Mr. Prig, the auctioneer, whose 
manner was so inimitably fine that he had as much to say 
upon a ribbon as a Eaphael. 

"A less pardonable fault is that rage for indecency which 
pervades the whole work ; but especially the last volumes.' 

I will add another extract, which though taken from a 
w r ork more accessible than Porson's writings, is generally so 
able and judicious in its criticisms on infidel authors, as I 
remarked in the Preface, that I am disposed to do all I can 
to call public attention to them. In the Periodical to which 
I refer, is an article on "Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works," in 
which these well-deserved strictures occur. 

"He considered the progress of Christianity as a disturb* 
ance of the quiet and established rights of Paganism ; and 
the Eeformation, though he allowed, to a certain extent, its 
beneficial influence on mental freedom, as another invasion 
of the quiet and settled claims of popery. His serious (if in 
such a writer it be possible to discover what is serious and 
what is not, but his apparently serious) and strong partiality 
for Mahommedism, was a singular phenomenon. Insulting 
and discarding Christianity for the follies and inconsistencies 
of its professors, which, at worst, were no more than a recoil 
of human passions upon its genuine influence, he could en- 
dure, nay, he could applaud the Mahommedan imposture, 
though slaughter, devastation, and military fanaticism were 



298 NOTES TO 

parts of its constitution. But the secret (a secret perhaps to 
himself) was, that the objects on which those terrible quali- 
ties were exercised happened to be Jews and Christians, 
against whom intolerance itself was to be tolerated, and 
every license was lawful. In his insidious attacks upon the 
Gospel, he had reckoned too securely upon the apathy and 
indifference of his countrymen ; but shocked and confound 
ed as he owns himself to have been, by the consequences of 
his mistake, he put forth all his powers of sarcasm, irony, 
and vindictive scorn, on his indiscreet and unfortunate ad- 
versaries. In him, the man and the writer (it is no unusual 
inconsistency) were too different creatures. Affectionate and 
even piously attentive to relatives who could contribute lit- 
tle to his entertainment, and nothing to his emolument, con- 
stant in unequal friendships, and grateful to fallen greatness, 
it is impossible not to pronounce him so far an amiable man. 

It is difficult to discover how it came to pass, that a man 
who delighted in the conversation of chaste and accomplished 
women, and whose correspondence with friends even of his 
own sex, is wholly untinctured with pruriency of imagina- 
tion, should, in the great work in which his reputation was 
embarked, have had so little regard to the public and him- 
self, as to pour out such torrents of ancient indecency. It 
is no apology for this insult upon the public morals (a sys- 
tematic and persevering insult of many years continuance) 
that the poison was confined to his notes, and enveloped in 
cover of a dead and difficult language. It did more mischief 
than his infidelity. It addressed itself to the imagination 



FIRST LECTURE. 



290 



and the passions of an age which needed not to be inflamed 
by intellectual incentives to the youth of our great schools 
and universities, who, captivated by the seductive charms of 
his text, would be farther attracted by the learned semblance 
of his notes, to descend to the polluted margin where they 
might decipher Greek, and drink in vice and profligacy by 
the same effort. We had once formed the impracticable reso- 
lution of expunging the offensive passages, of both descrip- 
tions, from our copy of the Decline and Fall. The ribaldry, 
indeed, of the notes might, by a due degree of perseverance, 
have been expelled, and a blotted page might well have been 
atoned for by the comparative purity of what remained: 
but the sneers and sarcasms, the hints and allusions, the sly, 
depreciating associations, and the comparisons of the text, 
could by no art or effort be removed. 

Quinque palaestrites licet haec plantaria vellant, 
Haud tamen ista filix ullo mansuescit aratro. — Pers. 

So incorporated indeed are these vices with the very tex- 
ture and tissue of the work, that it would be as easy to ex- 
tract, thread by thread, the offensive and hideous figures 
sometimes woven into a piece of ancient tapestry, as to de- 
tach those parts from Gibbon's History, and leave anything 
but the trama figurce behind. This maturity in intellectual 
vice he appears to have attained only in his later days. In 
his journal, written at three and twenty, he speaks of the im- 
purities of Juvenal in a mann er which shows his imagina- 
tion, and the principle at least of his morals, to have been 



300 



NOTES TO 



yet untainted. It is edifying, however, to observe, that hav- 
ing abandoned the Gospel, the Gospel abandoned Mm; and 
that he is driven to the defence of his immoralities upon a 
principle which proves how much better a casuist is the 
meanest Christian, than the greatest philosopher." 

Although two or three sentences of this extract are 
quoted in the body of the Lecture to which this note refers, 
I have thought my readers would be gratified to have placed 
before them a more extended exhibition of the ability with 
which Dr. Whitaker has analyzed the spirit of Gibbon's 
hostility. 

The same sentiment, though perhaps somewhat inten- 
sified, was held by this standard work, when, a quarter of a 
century afterwards, it reviewed Milman's edition of the " De- 
cline and Fall," beginning the article with the declaration: 

"It was an evil hour for the best interests of mankind 
when Gibbon undertook to write the history of " The De- 
cline and Fall of the Eoman Empire." If the subject was 
well chosen, and he in many respects admirably qualified to 
do it justice, so much the worse. The literary merits of the 
work only secured a wider range for the infidel principles 
mixed up with it ; and, as from the nature of the subject, it 
was sure to be read by the young far more than by those of 
mature age and established opinions, there is no telling the 
number of minds it may have unsettled. The poison too, 
was put in circulation without any label on the wrapper ; for 
who would, expect a history of Eome to be made the vehicle 



FIRST LECTURE. 



301 



of a malignant attack upon Christianity Whe- 
ther we turn to the characters he dwells npon with dispro- 
portionate interest — the features of a picture he exhibits in 
the most prominent relief — the critical scrupulosity with 
which he investigates the most nauseous details, sifting them 
with the pertinacity and relish of a duck filtering the filthiest 
mud for its meal — whether we track the spirit of the man 
by its slime through a dirty quotation, a sly inuendo, a lux- 
urious amplification — all concur to show that the mind was 
inveterately sensual." 

Out of the many able writers who might be quoted in 
this connection, I will refer to but one more — Sir James 
Mackintosh, well versed as he was in the question of what 
history ought to be in order to render it reliable and in- 
structive. Though I would hardly coincide in his quaint 
remark that "Gibbon could have been cut out of a corner 
of Burke's mind without his missing it," his judgment of 
Gibbon as a historian had been carefully matured. 

"The sixteenth chapter," he says, "I cannot help con- 
sidering as a very ingenious and specious, but very disgrace- 
ful extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Eoman 
magistrates against the Christians. It is written in the most 
contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers: 
it is unworthy of a philosopher and of a man of humanity. 
Let his narrative of Cyprian's death be examined. lie had 
to relate the murder of an innocent man, of advanced age, 
and in station deemed venerable by a considerable body of 



302 



NOTES TO 



the provincials of Africa — put to death because he refused 
to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing the indignation 
of posterity against such an atrocious act of tyranny, he 
dwells with visible art on all the smaller circumstances of 
decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and 
which he relates with as much parade as if they were the 
most important particulars of the event." . 

Page 48. 

The following occurrence is taken ftom Haldane's Me- 
moir. It serves to shed a fresh light on the imperisha- 
ble endurance of the Holy Scripture. The characters in- 
troduced in the story are well known. 

"I was dining," said Dr. Buchanan, "some time ago, with 
a literary party at old Mr. Abercrombie's, of Trill ibody, 
(the father of Mr. Ealph Abercrombie, who was slain in 
Egypt,) and we spent the evening together. A gentleman 
present put a question which puzzled the whole company. 
It was this : ' Supposing all the New Testaments in the world 
had been destroyed at the end of the third century, could 
their contents have been recovered from the writings of the 
first three centuries?' The question was novel to all, and no 
one even hazarded a guess in answer to the inquiry. 

"About two months after this meeting I received an in- 
vitation to breakfast with Lord Hailes (Sir David Dalrym- 
ple) next morning. He had been one of the party. During 
breakfast he asked me if I recollected the curious question 



FIEST LECTUKE. 



303 



about the possibility of recovering the contents of the New 
Testament from the writings of the first three centuries. 1 1 
remember it well, and thought of it often, without being 
able to fdrm an opinion or conjecture on the subject.' 

" 'Well,' said Lord Hailes, 'that question quite accorded 
with the taste of my antiquarian mind On returning home, 
as I knew I had all the writers of those centuries, I began 
immediately to collect them, that I might set to work on the 
arduous task as soon as possible.' Pointing to a table cover- 
ed with papers, he said, ' There I have been busy these two 
months, searching for chapters, half chapters, and sentences 
of the New Testament, and have marked down what I found 
and where I found it, so that any person may examine and 
see for himself. I have actually discovered the whole New 
Testament, except seven or eleven verses, (I forget which,} 
which satisfies me that I could discover them also. God 
concealed or hid the treasures of his "Word where Julian, 
the apostate emperor, and the other enemies of Christ, who 
wished to extirpate the gospel from the world, never would 
have thought of; and though they had, they never could 
have effected their destruction.' " 

Page 5S. 

In this Lecture and in the fifth of the present series, 
(see pp. 237, 238.) I speak of the present day, perhaps I 
should say the last half century, as an epoch remarkable 
for the increased spread of the Bible. The following sta- 



SOI 



NOTES TO FIRST LECTURE. 



tistics on the subject, must be viewed with interest by 
every friend of religion. 

According to the best information which I can obtain, the 
whole number of Bibles in circulation fifty years ago, 
was about ...... 4,000,000 

Since that time there have been published by 

various Bible Societies, not less than . 40,000,000 

The same number at least have been published 

by individuals on their own account, . 40,000,000 

Making in all, 80,000,000 
If we allow 20,000,000, for destruction or loss 
of Books by wear and tear during this pe- 
riod we have then 60,000,000 

Bibles now in circulation, instead of the . 4,000,000 
which were in circulation fifty years since. In other 
words, within the last half century Bibles have beeo 
multiplied fifteen fold. 

These estimates are furnished by intelligent Officers 
of Bible Societies, who have given careful attention to 
ascertain the facts in the case. It is worthy of note that 
50,000,000 of this aggregate of Bibles have been publish- 
ed in the English Language. 



Page 61. 

Bisliop Burnet's account of Eochester's conversion and 
death, which is so warmly commended by Dr. Johnson, is 
not the only notice of these remarkable events that may be 
read with profit The letters written by the Earl's mother 
to her sister-in-law, in which she describes the change that 
had passed on her son, are very affecting, and the funeral 
sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Parsons on occasion of the 
Earl's death, gives many additional incidents of fresh interest. 

I will make room for one circumstance that is especially 
memorable. Fearing that the reality of his repentance 
might be questioned after his death, he prepared the follow- 
ing declaration, subscribed it in the presence of witnesses, 
and left the request that it might be published to the world 
as his dying testimony. 

t! For the benefit of all those whom I may have drawn 
into si:i by my example and encouragement, I leave to the 
world this my last declaration, which I deliver in the pre- 
sence of the great God, who knows the secrets of all hearts, 
and before whom I am to be judged ; that from the bottom 
of my soul I detest and abhor the whole course of my for- 



306 



NOTES TO 



mer wicked life ; and that I think I can never sufficiently 
admire the goodness of God, who has given me a true sense 
of my pernicious opinions and vile practices, by which 1 
have hitherto lived without hope, and without God in the 
world ; have been an open enemy to Jesus Christ, doing the 
utmost despite to the holy Spirit of grace; and that the 
greatest testimony of my charity to such is, to warn them, 
in the name of God, and as they regard the welfare of their 
immortal souls, no more to deny his being or his providence, 
or despise his goodness ; no more to make a mock of sin, or 
contemn the pure and excellent religion of my ever-blessed 
Eedeemer ; through whose merits alone, I, one of the great- 
est of sinners, do yet hope for mercy and forgiveness. Amen, 

" J. Rochester. 

" Delivered and signed June 19, 1680, in the presence of 

"Ann Rochester. 
"R. Parsons." 

Page 62. 

However united the men whom I have here named may 
have been in their hostility to Christianity, they were not 
always on the most amiable terms with each other; nor does 
their mutual admiration seem to have been proof against 
change. The explosion, for it deserves no better name, be- 
tween Hume and Rousseau, forms a most ridiculous episode 
in the lives of the two men. 



SECOND LECTURE. 



307 



When Hume met with Eousseau at Paris in 1765, he 
writes in the most exaggerated style respecting the value of 
the acquaintance he had formed. In a letter addressed to 
Dr. Blair, he says, 

"People may talk of ancient Greece as they please; but 
no nation was ever so fond of genius as this, and no person 
ever so much engaged their attention as Eousseau. Voltaire 
and every body else are quite eclipsed by him. 

"I am sensible that my connections with him add to 
my importance at present. Even his maid, La Vasseur, who 
is very homely and very awkward, is more talked of than 
the Princess of Morocco or the Countess of Egmont, on ac- 
count of her fidelity and attachment towards him. His very 
dog, who is no better than a collie, has a name and reputation 
in the world. As to my intercourse with him, I find him 
mild, and gentle, and modest, and good-humored; he has 
more the behaviour of a man of the world than any of the 
learned here, except M. de Buffon ; who, in his figure and 
air, and deportment, answers your idea of a marechal of 
France rather than that of a philosopher. M. Eousseau is of 
small stature, and would be rather ugly, had he not the 
finest physiognomy in the world : I mean the most expres- 
sive countenance. His modesty seems not to be good man- 
ners, but ignorance of his own excellence. As he writes, 
and speaks, and acts, from the impulse of genius, more than 
from the use of his ordinary faculties, it is very likely that 
he forgets its force whenever it is laid asleep. I am well as- 
sured that at times he believes he has inspirations from an 



308 



NOTES TO 



immediate communication with the Divinity. He falls some- 
times into ecstasies, which retain him in the same posture 
for hours together. Does not this example solve the dif- 
ficulty of Socrates' genius, and of his ecstasies? I think 
Rousseau in many things very much resembles Socrates. 
The philosopher of Geneva seems only to have more 
genius than he of Athens, who never wrote any thing; 
and less sociableness and temper. Both of them were of 
very amorous complexions; but a comparison in this par- 
ticular, turns out much to the advantage of my friend. 
I call him such, for I hear, from all hands, that his judg- 
ment and affections are as strongly biased in my favor 
as mine are in his." 

I will not dwell on the rise and progress of the bitter 
quarrel which followed this enthusiastic panegyric, but 
will simply refer to another letter which Hume wrote to 
Dr. Blair the following year, in which he displays a tem- 
per by no means enviable. 

"You will be surprised, dear Doctor," he writes "when 
I desire you most earnestly, never in your life to show 
to any mortal creature the letters I wrote you with re- 
gard to Bousseau. He is surely the blackest and most 
atrocious villain, beyond comparison, that now exists in 
the world, and I am heartily ashamed of any thing I ever 
wrote in his favor. I know you will pity me when I tell 
you that I am afraid I must publish this to the world in 
a pamphlet, which must contain an account of the whole 



SECOND LECTURE. 309 

transaction between us. My only comfort is, that the 
matter will be so clear as not to leave to any mortal the 
smallest possibility of doubt. You know how dangerous 
any controversy on a disputable point would be with a 
man of his talents. I know not where the miscreant will 
now retire to, in order to hide his head from this infamy. " 

Page 67. 

The account of this incident in the life of Franklin is 
taken almost word for word from a paper proverbially 
Cautious in avoiding everything like fiction; and I have 
been the more inclined to introduce it, because this dis- 
tinguished man has been too often regarded as having no 
reverence for the Bible. 

Page 81. 

It seems that when Professor Silliman was abroad on 
his travels, he received a different account of the circum- 
stances attending the death of Hume's mother, which he 
considered as entitled to credit, and which he published. 
The story as related to him, was that Hume, when con- 
firmed in his own infidelity, "had applied himself with 
unwearied and unhappily with successful efforts, to sap 
the foundation of his mother's faith. Having succeeded 
in this dreadful work, he went abroad into foreign coun- 
tries; and as he was returning, an express met him in 



310 



NOTES TO 



London, with a letter from his mother, informing him 
that she was in a deep decline, and conld not long sur- 
vive : she said she found herself without any support in 
her distress ; that he had taken away that source of com- 
fort upon which in all cases of affliction she used to rely, 
and that she now found her mind sinking into despair: 
she did not doubt that her son would afford her some 
substitute for her religion, and she conjured him to hasten 
to her, or at least to send her a letter containing such 
consolations as philosophy can afford to a dying mortal. 
Hume was overwhelmed with anguish on receiving this 
letter, and hastened to Scotland, travelling day and night; 
but before he arrived his mother expired." 

When this representation appeared, a nephew of Hume 
felt himself called upon to contradict it; and furnished 
an account of the affair as we have stated it in the Lec- 
ture. It certainly does not mend the matter as it concerns 
Hume himself. For if it shows that his mother had not 
been misled by his sophistry, it proves from his own lips 
his want of sincerity, his habitual violation of his own 
sober convictions on the subject of religion. 

Page 83. 

I will refer to a few of the well known authorities 
that have pronounced judgment on Mr. Hume, both as a 
philosopher and a historian. 

When accounting for the attention of certain classes 



SECOND LECTURE. oil 

of readers which, his impious theories once gained, Dr. 
Beattie observes ; 

"The corrupt judge ; the prostituted courtier ; the states- 
man who enriches himself by the plunder and blood of 
his country; the pettifogger, who fattens on the spoils of 
the fatherless and widows; the oppressor, who to pamper 
his beastly appetite abandons the deserving peasant to beg- 
gary and despair; the hypocrite, the debauchee, the game- 
ster, the blasphemer ; — prick up their ears when they are 
told that a celebrated author has written a book containing 
doctrines, or leading to such consequences as the following ; 
— ' That moral and intellectual virtues are nearly of the 
same kind;' in other words, that to want honesty and to 
want understanding, are equally the objects of moral dis- 
approbation — that every human action is necessary, and 
could not have been different from what it is : — that when 
we speak of power as an attribute of any being, God him- 
self not excepted, we use words without meaning: — that 
we can form no idea of power, nor of any being endowed 
with any power, much less of one endowed with infinite 
power : — that we can never have reason to believe that any 
object or quality of an object exists, of which we cannot 
form an idea: — that it is unreasonable to believe God to 
be infinitely wise and good, while there is any evil or dis- 
order in the universe; and that we have no good reason 
to think that the universe proceeds from a cause: — that 
the external world does not exist ; or at least that its ex- 
istence may reasonably be doubted, and that if the exter* 



312 



NOTES TO 



nal world be once called in doubt, we shall be at a loss 
to find arguments by which, we may prove the existence 
of the Supreme Being or any of his attributes: — that 
those who believe any thing certainly, are fools; — that 
adultery must be practised, if men would obtain all the ad- 
vantages of life; that if generally practised it would in time 
cease to be scandalous, and that if practised secretly and fre- 
quently, it would by degrees come to be thought no crime at 
all: — that the question concerning the substance of the 
soul is unintelligible: — that matter and motion may often 
be regarded as the cause of thought: — that the soul of 
man becomes every different moment a different being;' 
"from which doctrine it must follow, as a consequence, that 
the actions I performed last year, or this morning, whe- 
ther virtuous or vicious, are no more imputable to me 
than the virtues of Aristides are imputable to Nero, or 
the crimes of ISTero to the man of Eoss." 

When Dr. Magee, Archbishop of London, had quoted 
these observations of Dr. Beattie, he adds— "And yet it 
is of such a man as this, that such a man as Adam Smith 
has delivered the following testimony; — 'I have always 
considered Mr. Hume, both in his lifetime and since his 
death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly 
wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human 
frailty will permit.' " 

"But this is not all." Dr. Magee proceeds, "Mr. Hume 
had not done enough, it seems, for the extinction of re- 
ligion and the subversion of morals ; but, with a zeal be- 



SECOND LECTURE. 



313 



speaking his fidelity to the master whom he served, he 
left behind him blasphemies to be published after his death, 
which even he was afraid to publish while he lived ; so in- 
deed, his great admirer tells us, in his 'Apology for the 
Life and Writings of David Hume;' whose posthumous 
papers, he says, would probably 'carry his philosophy 
still nearer to that point which he might not think it 
discreet to push too vigorously in his lifetime.' What that 
point was, is but too evident on a single glance at the 
works which he thus bequeathed for the public benefit. 
The Dialogues on Natural Eeligion, and the Essay on 
Suicide, are standing monuments of a heart as wicked, 
and a head as weak, as ever belonged to any man who 
pretended to the character of a philosopher and a moral- 
ist. To leave deliberately, as a legacy to mankind, a re- 
commendation of self-murder, and an assurance that there 
is no Grod, at the very moment when he was himself 
about to appear before the bar of that dread Being ; and 
whilst thus occupied for the destruction of his fellow-crea- 
tures, to amuse himself with pleasant conceits about Charon 
and his ferry-boat, (as his biographer informs us he did, 
when he was almost dropping into his grave,) has something 
in it so frightful, that one naturally recoils from the thought 
of it with horror. It seems to be equalled only by the 
hideous impiety of Diderot, who adduces it as a decisive 
proof of the non-existence of a God, that he was permitted 
to write a work filled with blasphemies against his nature, 
and arguments against his being." 



314 NOTES TO 

Dr. Magee had made himself thoroughly acquainted 
with the spirit of Hume's writings ; and after having giv- 
en ample proofs of his sophistry and disingenuousness on 
questions of morality and religion, he goes on to say: 

"It is but fair, however, to confess that Mr. Hume has 
not confined altogether to religious subjects, his talent of 
disingenuous representation. His unfaithfulness, and gross 
partiality, as a historian, have been long pretty generally 
acknowledged; and it has been pronounced by judicious 
and candid writers, upon the subject of English history, 
that the History which Mr. Hume has given to the world 
is a most injurious work to put into the hands of the 
British youth, in order to give them just ideas of the his- 
tory or constitution of England." * * * No friend to 
humanity, and to the freedom of this kingdom,, will con- 
sider his constitutional inquiries, with their effect upon his 
narrative, and compare them with the ancient and vener- 
able monuments of our story, without feeling a lively sur- 
prise, and a patriot indignation." 

In this connection, Dr. Magee quotes Mr. Fox, Dr. 
Towers and others, as having the same views with himself. 

But there is still another writer not named by Dr. 
Magee, who should by no means be overlooked. Mr. Bro- 
die, in his "History of the British Empire from the Ac- 
cession of Charles I. to the Bestoration — including a par- 
ticular examination of Mr. Hume's statement respecting 
the character of the English government," has given such 



SECOND LECTURE. olO 

proof of Hume's dishonesty as must strike every read- 
er with amazement at his unblushing hardihood. He 
has shown that the very authorities to which Hume 
seems to refer, often convict him of misrepresentations that 
must have been wilfully made. Take an example. With 
Hume's preferences for royalty and irreligion, it may well 
be supposed he had no great friendship for Cromwell; 
and in order to depreciate the standing of that distinguished 
leader in the Commonwealth of England, especially during 
the early stages of his career, Hume asserts, that after the 
meeting of parliament in 1640, "Cromwell's name for above 
two years, is not to be found oftener than twice upon any 
conrmittee — and those committees into which he was ad- 
mitted were chosen for affairs which would more interest 
the Zealots than the men of business ;" and he makes this 
statement in a manner which leads his readers to suppose 
that he had fall authority from the Journals of the House 
for his assertions. 'Mr. Brodie has examined these official 
records, and finds that during the period of which Hume 
speaks, Cromwell was appointed on forty-five committees. 
He enumerates the dates when the committees were raised, 
and the subjects referred to them; showing that Crom- 
well acted a leading part on all affairs which could inte- 
rest "men of business," and which were then brought be- 
fore parliament. 

Mr. Brodie's book should be carefully read by those 
who wish to understand the glaring and reckless misrepre- 
sentations of which Hume has been guilty. His invcsti- 



318 



NOTES TO 



gations are thorough and impartial. It is a pity he has 
not given more finish and symmetry to his work. He has 
collected ample and valuable materials, all well authenti- 
cated. But he should have remembered that manner as 
well as matter, is of importance in displacing "Hume's 
England" from its too general popularity. No one, how- 
ever, can deny that he has done enough to convict Hume 
of what utterly destroys his credibility on any subject re- 
lating to religious truth or civil rights. 

"A serpent under a bed of roses, 1 ' is the expressive 
similitude under which Hannah More describes Hume's 
History; and she has sketched with great truth its dan- 
gerous tendency when she says, 

"There is a sedateness in his manner, which imposes; 
a sly gravity in his scepticism, which puts the reader 
more off his guard than the vehemence of censure, or 
the levity of wit; for we are always less disposed to sus- 
pect a man who is too wise to appear angry. That same 
wisdom makes him too correct to invent calumnies, but 
it does not preserve him from doing what is scarcely less 
disingenuous. He implicitly adopts the injurious relations 
of those annalists who were most hostile to the Eeformed 
faith; though he must have known their accounts to be 
aggravated and discolored, if not absolutely invented. He 
thus makes others responsible for the worst things he as- 
serts, and spreads the mischief without avowing the ma- 
lignity. When he speaks from himself, the sneer is so 
cool, the irony so sober, the contempt so discreet, the 



SECOND LECTUEE. 



317 



moderation so insidious, the difference between Popish big- 
otry and Protestant firmness, between the fury of the per- 
secutor and the resolution of the martyr, so little marked ; 
the distinctions between intolerant frenzy and heroic zeal 
so melted into each other, that though he contrives to 
make the reader feel some indignation at the tyrant, ho 
never leads him to feel any reverence for the sufferer. He 
ascribes such a slender superiority to one religious system 
above another, that the young reader who does not come 
to the perusal with his principles formed, will be in dan- 
ger of thinking that the reformation was really not worth 
contending for. But, in nothing is the skill of this ac- 
complished sophist more apparent than in the artful way 
in which he piques his readers into a conformity with his 
own views concerning religion. Human pride, he knew, 
naturally likes to range itself on the side of ability. He 
therefore skillfully works on this passion, by treating with 
a sort of contemptuous superiority, as weak and credulous 
men, all whom he represents as being under the religious 
delusion. To the shameful practice of confounding fanati- 
cism with real religion, he adds the disingenuous habit 
of accounting for the best actions of the best men, by re- 
ferring them to some low motive ; and affects to confound 
the designs of the religious and the corrupt, so artfully, 
as if no radical difference existed between them," 

Intelligent readers well know the triumphant tone 

with which we have been told that the two great histo- 

20 



318 



NOTES TO 



rians of the last century were both of them infidels. The 
object of this boast is very evident. It is to persuade us 
that the leading facts of history stand opposed to the truth 
of Christianity. This consideration has led me to furnish 
the great variety of testimony which I have inserted in 
these notes, showing how little dependance can be placed 
on the truth and integrity of either Gibbon or Hume, es- 
pecially when the subject of religion is in question. 

Page 95. 

A memorable instance of this weak credulity has re- 
cently been displayed in a man widely known for the part 
he has acted in our own country. The "Evangelical Cath- 
olic," quoting from the "Dublin Tablet," tells us, 

" A more signal exhibition of that great law which so 
often punishes unbelief by consigning the proud intellect 
to the most abject credulity, has seldom been afforded than 
by Kobert Owen's late letter to the Queen. That patriarch 
of Socialism, after spending nearly his whole life in trying 
to persuade himself and others that he had 'a mission' 
to found a new state of society, in which religion, law, 
marriage, and private property should be unknown: after 
preaching disbelief in the very existence of God, and de- 
claring that all religions alike were based on fanciful no- 
tions and prejudices, has now come out as the herald of 
a new faith. Eobert Owen proclaims his undoubting faith 
in 'spirit rappings,' and not only so, but is a 'medium' 



SECOND LECTURE. 



himself and has obtained revelations from the spirit of 
her Majesty's late royal father, the Duke of Kent. This 
ingenious old infidel, who considers the belief in 'a per- 
sonal Deity' as quite an exploded and irrational absurd- 
ity, writes a letter to her Majesty in the Rational Quar- 
terly Review, in which he tells her, that by means of these 
Mappings' he had been enabled to hold 'two conferences, 
to him most important and gratifying,' with the deceased 
duke; that he had refrained from communicating them 
to her Majesty during her late interesting situation, but 
that he now had the duke's permission to do so ; that his 
royal highness informed him that he was 'in the fourth 
sphere and first circle, and that he was, as all the spirits 
were in his sphere, happy in a very high degree.' Being 
asked whether these conferences were agreeable to him, 
he replied, 'Very much so!' And 'Would it be pleasant 
to come at a future time?' ' Yes.' To this degree of 
self-deception, or Satanic delusion, or mere doting folly, 
or all of them put together, has this proud scoffer been 
reduced ; and not only he, but many thousands of people 
in the United States and elsewhere, on whose minds this 
species of necromancy has taken such a hold as almost 
to remind one of the wild Grnostic and Manichsean su- 
perstitions which the Church had to combat in primi- 
tive ages." 

Fanaticism, as the offspring of infidelity, is a subject 
which might furnish materials for a very useful and en- 



320 



NOTES TO 



tertaining volume. Fanatics are a race that has neve? 
been extinct; but the Bible never made one of them. 
They are found in greatest numbers where the Bible 
never was read; and if they are seen where that holy 
book is spread and known, there is abundance of evi- 
dence to show that the wildest fanaticism which has ever 
disgraced the human understanding does not prevail among 
those who receive the Bible and believe in it, but among 
those who reject it. 

Page 99. 

That acute observer and sprightly writer, the Earl of 
Charlemont, gives us the following account of Hume when 
at the French metropolis. 

"Hume's fashion at Paris, when he was there as Secre- 
tary to Lord Hertford, was truly ridiculous; and nothing 
ever marked, in a more striking manner, the whimsical 
genius of the French. No man, from his manners, was 
surely less formed for their society, or less likely to meet 
with approbation; for that flimsy philosophy, which per- 
vades and deadens even their most licentious novels, was 
then the folly of the day. Freethinking and English frocks 
were the fashion, and the Anglo mania was the ton du 
pays. Lord Holland, though far better calculated than 
Hume to please in France, was also an instance of this 
singular predilection. Being about this time on a visit to 
Paris, the French concluded that an Englishman of his 



SECOND LECTURE. 



321 



reputation must be a philosopher, and must be admired 
It was customary with him to doze after dinner, and one 
day, at a great entertainment, he happened to fall asleep: 
"Le voila" says a marquis, pulling his neighbor by the 
sleeve, "Le voila, qui pense." But the madness for Hume 
was far more singular and extravagant. From what has 
been already said of him, it is apparent that his conver- 
sation to strangers, and particularly to Frenchmen, could 
be little delightful, and still more particularly, one would 
suppose, to French women. And jet no lady's toilette 
was complete without Hume's attendance. At the opera, 
his broad unmeaning face was usually seen entre deux 
jolis minois. The ladies in France give the ton, and the 
ton was deism; a species of philosophy ill suited to the 
softer sex. * * * * 

"How my friend Hume was able to endure the en- 
counter of these French female Titans I know not. In 
England, either his philosophic pride, or his conviction 
that infidelity was ill suited to woman, made him per- 
fectly averse from the initiation of ladies into the myste- 
ries of his doctrine. I never saw him so much dis- 
pleased, or so much disconcerted, as by the petulance of 
Mrs. Mallet, the conceited wife of Bolingbroke's editor. 
This lady, who was not acquainted with Hume, meeting 
him one night at an assembly, boldly accosted him in these 
words: 'Mr. Hume, give me leave to introduce myself 
to you: we deists ought to know each other!' — 'Madam/ 
he replied, 'I am no deist. I do not style myself so, 



322 NOTES TO SECOND LECTURE. 

neither do I desire to be known by that appellation.' n 
If he was not a deist, then what was he? Did he 
call himself an atheist? He must have been a deist, or 
something worse, for he certainly was not a believer in 
Christianity or the inspiration of the Scriptures. Perhaps 
he was himself unable to say what he was. His friend 
Lord Charlemont thought that "his sceptical turn made 
him doubt, and consequently dispute everything; and his 
understanding was so far warped and bent by this un- 
fortunate predilection, that he had well nigh lost that best 
faculty of the mind, the almost intuitive perception of 
truth." 

Hume, in his "Own Life," tells us, "Those who have 
not seen the strange effects of modes, will never imagine 
the reception I met with at Paris, from men and women 
of all ranks and stations. The more I resiled from their 
excessive civilities, the more I was loaded with them. 
There is, however, a real satisfaction in living at Paris; 
from the great number of sensible, knowing, and polite 
company with which that city abounds above all places 
in the universe. I once thought of settling there for life." 



Page 119. 

Montesquieu's belief in the truth of Christianity has 
been questioned by some, but without reason. His Let- 
tres Persanes, written in his younger days, treats the re- 
ligion of those times in France with a levity quite too 
unguarded. But in his maturer years, and in his later 
and more studied writings, he has left abundant evidence 
of his reverence for the Gospel as a revelation from God. 
One of the best reviews both of the man and of his writ- 
ings, which have recently been given to the public, is 
found in Blackwood's Magazine ; and the case is there stat- 
ed with so much brevity and justice that I avail myself of 
its authority. 

"In his Lett res Persanes" says the Ee viewer, "though 
lie had never assailed the great principles of religion, he 
had in his sallies against the Jesuits gone far to warrant 
the belief that he was inclined to do so ; and had already 
done enough in the estimation of the tyrannical and big- 
oted Ecclesiastics, who at that period ruled the Church ol 
France, to warrant his being included in the class of infi- 
del writers. But his mind, chastened by years, enlightened 



324 



NOTES TO 



by travelling and reflection, had come to cast off these 
prejudices of his age and country, the necessary result of 
the Eomish tyranny by which it had been oppressed, but 
unworthy of an intellect of such grasp and candor. In 
the Protestant countries of Europe, particularly Holland 
and England, he had seen the working of Christianity de- 
tached from the rigid despotism by which the Church of 
Eome fetters belief, and the. well -conceived appliances by 
which it stimulates imagination and opens a refuge for 
frailty. Impressed with the new ideas thus awakened m 
his mind, he had in his Esprit des Loix pronounced a 
studious and sincere eulogium on Christianity ; recommend- 
ing it, not only as the most perfect of all systems of re- 
ligious belief, but as the only secure basis of social order 
and improvement. It was material to correct the impres- 
sion, partly just, partly erroneous, which his earlier and 
more indiscreet writings had produced ; and with this view 
he wrote and published his Defence de V Esprit des Loix" 

He has entitled Book xxiv of his great work, " Laws 
as relative to Eeligion, considered in itself and in its doc- 
trines ;" and he has expressed himself in most unequivo- 
cal terms, when he says, 

" As in this work I am not a divine, but a political 
writer, I may here advance things which are not other- 
wise true, than as they correspond with a worldly man- 
ner of t) 'nking, not as considered in their relation to 
truths o* ■ more sublime nature. 



THIED LECTURE. 



325 



"With regard to the true religion, a person of the 
least degree of impartiality must see, that I have never 
pretended to make its interests submit to those of a po- 
litical nature, but rather to unite them ; now, in order to 
unite, it is necessary that we should know them. 

" The Christian religion, which ordains that men should 
love each other, would, without doubt, have every nation 
blest with the best civil, the best political laws ; because 
these, next to this religion, are the greatest good that men 
can give and receive." 

" The Christian religion is a stranger to mere despot- 
ic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in 
the gospel, is incompatible with the despotic rage with 
which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises him- 
self in cruelty. 

"While the Mahometan princes incessantly give or 
receive death, the religion of the Christians renders their 
princes less timid, and consequently less cruel. The prince 
confides in his subjects, and the subjects in the prince. 
How admirable the religion which, while it only seems to 
have in view the felicity of the other life, continues the 
happiness of this! 

"It is the Christian religion, that, in spite of the ex- 
tent of empire and the influence of the climate, has hin- 
dered despotic power from being established in ^Ethiopia, 
and has carried into the heart of Africa the manners 
and laws of Europe. 

" Let us set before our eyes, on the one hand, the con* 



326 



NOTES TO 



tinual massacres of the kings and generals of the Greeks 
and Eomans ; and, on the other, the destruction of people 
and cities by those famous conquerors Timour Beg and 
Yenghis Khan, who ravaged Asia ; and we shall see that 
we owe to Christianity, in government, a certain political 
law, and in war a certain law of nations ; benefits which 
human nature can never sufficiently acknowledge. 

" It is owing to this law of nations that 'amongst us vic- 
tory leaves great advantages to the conquered — life, liberty, 
laws, wealth, and always religion, when the conqueror is 
not blind to his own interest." 

He adds in a subsequent chapter : 

"Mr. Bayle, after having abused all religions, endeavors 
to sully Christianity. He boldly asserts that true Chris- 
tians cannot form a government of any duration. "Why 
not? Citizens of this profession being infinitely enlight- 
ened in respect to the various duties of life, and having the 
warmest zeal to fulfil them, must be perfectly sensible of 
the rights of natural defence. The more they believe them- 
selves indebted to religion, the more they would think due 
to their country. The principles of Christianity, deeply 
engraved on the heart, would be infinitely more powerful 
than the false honor of monarchies, than the humane vir- 
tues of republics, or the servile fears of despotic states." 

Such were the views of Montesquieu, the renowned 
" Founder of the Philosophy of History," as he has often 



THIRD LECTURE. 327 

been called. The circumstances of his death were in full 
correspondence with the sentiments which he held dur- 
ing the best years of his life. We are told 

"The Jesuits made strenuous endeavors to get posses- 
sion of him during his last moments ; but though strongly 
impressed with religious principle, he resisted all their 
efforts to extract from him a declaration in favor of their 
peculiar tenets. 1 1 have always respected religion,' said he ; 
* the morality of the Gospel is the noblest gift ever bestow- 
ed by God on man.' The Jesuits strenuously urged him 
to put into their hands a corrected copy of the Lettres Per- 
sanes, in which he had expunged the passages having an 
irreligious tendency, but he refused to give it to them ; but 
he gave the copy to the Duchesse d'Aiguillon and Madame 
Dupre de St. Maur, who were in the apartment, with in- 
structions for its publication, saying, ' I will sacrifice every- 
thing to religion, but nothing to the Jesuits.' " 



Page 121. 



There is another name not mentioned in the body of 
this Lecture, and which on several accounts should not be 
overlooked when enumerating great men who have avowed 
their faith in Christianity. I refer to the Emperor Napoleon. 
His brilliant and astonishing career created an excitement 
in the minds of all classes, which for a time rendered him 
with some an object of admiration bordering on idolatry, 
and with others the subject of most extravagant and un- 



328 



NOTES TO 



reasonable abuse. Few spoke of him or judged of Ms 
deeds with calmness and sobriety. The world is now set- 
tling down into a more righteous judgment respecting him 
and his eventful life. No one will now deny that he was 
one of the most extraordinary men that ever lived. His 
intellect had a vastness of might, when directed to any sub* 
ject, that enabled him to master its strong points with a com- 
pleteness and a facility very seldom equalled, if ever sur- 
passed. His fall from the summit of power where he had 
so long stood, and his imprisonment at St. Helena, awoke 
deep sympathy for him in thousands of hearts ; and prayer 
was made for him without ceasing, that in his affliction he 
might be led to own the hand of God. It is not for man 
to say how far these prayers were answered. But there is 
abundance of evidence to show that Christianity, even in 
his busiest seasons and during his most splendid achieve- 
ments, had at times been the subject of serious thought; and 
that in the solitude of his banishment, he made it his care- 
ful study, and was in the end a decided believer in its truth. 

The subjoined remarks are from the French correspon- 
dent of one of our leading religious journals, who is re- 
markable for his generally sound judgment on passing 
events. He very justly remarks, 

" Surely we have all asked more than once : Did Napo- 
leon die an Infidel or a Christian ? Did this extraordinary 
warrior, who for eighteen years appeared in the world as 
an instrument of Providence to punish the nations and to 
effect vast changes, — did he bow his haughty "head at the 



THIRD LECTURE. 329 

foot of the cross, and open his heart to the truths of the 
Grospel ? It is difficult to answer this question with entire 
satisfaction. The admirers of Napoleon (and among them 
are many bishops and priests) have perhaps forged false 
facts, or exaggerated true facts to exalt their hero. But 
however doubtful, it is interesting to collect whatever can 
throw any light upon the reljgious views of this great man, 
and I will now bring to your view some documents little 
known, which have been lately published by a French 
journal. 

Let us first cast a rapid glance, since the occasion offers, 
at the life of Napoleon, considered in regard to religion. 

Buonaparte, being born in the island of Corsica, of pa- 
rents originally from Italy, and having an uncle who was a 
priest, received in early life religious instruction. It is pro- 
bable that his mother sought to instil into his mind a res- 
pect for the doctrines of popery ; for the Corsicans are, in 
general, more attached to the Eomish church than the 
French ; and even now preserve some antiquated supersti- 
tions for which they profess a singular veneration. Young 
Buonaparte, raised among such a people, must necessarily 
have imbibed in childhood more or less of their ideas. But 
these first impressions do not seem to have lasted long, He 
was soon sent to a military school in France, at a time 
when the infidel philosophy of Yoltaire and Bosseau had 
gained an almost universal assent. He every where heard 
the doctrines of religion scoffed at and ridiculed; and how 
could a young officer, who had doubtless little studied 



330 NOTES TO 

theological subjects, resist the contagion of scepticism? 

From the military school Buonaparte passed immedi- 
ately to the field of battle. There, deafened by the noise 
of war, constantly engaged in scenes of carnage, urged 
onward by the incentives of ambition, his heart was too 
full of visible things to be occupied with invisible things. 
We -do not find in the history of Napoleon that, during 
his brilliant campaigns in Italy, he paid any attention to 
religious subjects. He showed no more deference to the 
Pope as a temporal prince, than to other sovereigns. He 
even consented to the abduction of Pius VI. who died on 
his way, overcome with fatigue and grief. Afterwards, 
when he went to Egypt, he tried to gain the Mahometans 
by speaking their language, and some at the time said 
that he embraced the religion of the False Prophet. But 
this was not true; the conqueror of Egypt only made 
use of the language of the Koran to gain a more easy 
triumph; a trick of state too often employed by earthly 
rulers. 

Having become master of France, and being clothed 
with the title of first consul, Buonaparte made, it is true, a 
formal agreement with the Pope, and restored the exer- 
cise of worship. But it would be wrong to seek in such 
acts a proof of personal piety. He merely wished, ac- 
cording to all appearance, to strengthen his dominion. 
The priests were only his agents, charged to preach to the 
people, in the cities and villages, obedience to the will 
of Napoleon. He had subsequently violent quarrels with 



THIRD LECTURE. 



331 



pope Pius VII. and in their long and lamentable discus- 
sions we discover nothing in the Emperor, which shows 
a man piously submissive to the holy See. On the con- 
trary, Napoleon had formed the plan of making the Pope 
a simple Patriarch, who would have been subjected to 
his authority. 

Continual wars filled up his reign. During this time, 
religion was probably far removed from his heart; and if 
it sometimes pressed itself upon his attention, it was in a 
transient and vague manner. It has been remarked that, 
in this part of his career, he showed often a kind of be- 
lief in fatalism. He spoke of his star, to those who sur- 
rounded him; he confided in this star; he said, after a 
great victory, that he had been once more protected by 
his star. When he met with a reverse he laid it upon 
his mysterious star, which he considered as presiding over 
all his actions. Strange and superstitious notion, bor- 
rowed from the astrology of the dark ages, but explica- 
ble when we look at the life of Napoleon. 

He had passed through such a variety of fortune, had 
risen from so humble a condition to so lofty an emi- 
nence, he had so often obtained splendid victories, that 
he must believe — either in a special blessing of divine 
Providence — or in the magic influence of a star. But as 
the idea of a Providence was not in his thoughts, he had 
adopted the notion of a blind destiny, which, under the 
name of star, controlled all his actions. 

It is remarkable that almost all illustrious men have 



332 



NOTES TO 



been believers in fatalism. Is there then, in the chances 
of battle, in the uncertainty of victory, in the triumphs 
achieved by force of arms, some undefinable impression 
which impels men to regard themselves as the slaves of 
an unknown and irresistible power? 

Terrible disasters drove Napoleon from his throne; I 
will not relate them here: the world has resounded with 
them. The moment came then for the illustrious captain 
to examine himself, to listen to the voice of conscience, 
to feel his utter weakness, and perhaps to turn his thoughts 
to God. His old friends had abandoned him, his power 
was gone, the din with which he had been surrounded 
was hushed. He was alone with some companions of his 
misfortune — he was more wretched than can be told. Was 
it not to be hoped that these severe trials would soften 
his hard heart, and lead him to seek in the religion of 
Christ the only consolations adequate to his adversity ? 

Some persons thought so. An eminent Christian of 
England, the Eev. Dr. David Bogue, sent to the prisoner 
of St. Helena, a copy of his Essay on the divine authority 
of the New Testament Napoleon read the little work with 
interest and satisfaction. The proofs cited by the autho? 
in favor of the divinity of Christianity convinced him, 
as eye-witnesses attest. True, this was not enough to 
make him a Christian, but it was enough to awaken in 
him serious reflections. After Napoleon's death, this copy 
of the Essay was given to an under officer, a pious man, 
who had taught English to the children of the Empe- 



THIRD LECTURE. 



333 



rors companions. When the regiment returned to Eng- 
land, this same copy was given back to Dr. Bogue, who 
received it with much emotion, as a new testimony of 
the favor of God upon his book." 

What these eye-witnesses do attest has been repeated- 
ly spread before the world. The companions of his exile 
were far from being religious men. His friend, General 
Bertrand, was an avowed unbeliever. It appears their 
conversation very frequently w as on the subject of re- 
ligion. On one occasion Napoleon was speaking of the 
Divinity of Christ, when Bertrand remarked, 

"I cannot conceive, Sire, how a great man like you 
can believe that the Supreme Being ever exhibited 
himself to men under a human form, with a body, 
a face, mouth, and eyes. Let Jesus be whatever you 
please — the highest intelligence, the purest heart, the 
most profound legislator, and, in all respects, the most 
singular being who has ever existed. I grant it. Still 
he was simply a man, who taught his disciples, and de- 
luded credulous people, as did Orpheus, Confucius, Brah- 
ma. Jesus caused himself to be adored, because his pre- 
decessors, Isis and Osiris, Jupiter and Juno, had proud- 
ly made themselves objects of worship. The ascendency 
of Jesus over his time, was like the ascendency of the 
gods and the heroes of fable. If Jesus has impassioned 
and attached to his chariot the multitude — if he has revo- 
lutionized the world — I see in that, only the power of 

21 



334 



NOTES TO 



genius, and the action of a commanding spirit, which 
vanquishes the world, as so many conquerors have done 
— Alexander, Caesar, you, Sire, and Mohammed, with a 
sword." 

Napoleon replied: 

"I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is 
not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between 
Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of oth- 
er religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is 
between Christianity and whatever other religion, the dis- 
tance of infinity. 

"We can say to the authors of every other religion, 
'You are neither gods nor the agents of the Deity. You 
are but missionaries of falsehood, moulded from the same 
clay with the rest of mortals. You are made with all 
the passions and vices inseparable from them. Your 
temples and your priests proclaim your origin.' Such 
will be the judgment, the cry of conscience, of whoever 
examines the gods and the temples of paganism. 

"Paganism was never accepted, as truth, by the wise 
men of Greece; neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, 
Anaxagoras, or Pericles. On the other side, the loftiest 
intellects, since the advent of Christianity, have had faith, 
a living faith, a practical faith, in the mysteries and the 
doctrines of the gospel ; not only Bossuet and Fenelon, who 
were preachers, but Descartes and Newton, Leibnitz and 
Pascal, Corneille and Eacine, Charlemagne and Louis XIY. 

"Paganism is the work of man. One can here read 



THIRD LECTURE. 



335 



but our imbecility. What do these gods, so boastful, 
know more than other mortals? these legislators, Greek 
or Eoman, this Numa, this Lycurgus, these priests of In- 
dia or of Memphis, this Confucius, this Mohammed? Ab- 
solutely nothing. They have made a perfect chaos of 
morals. There is not one among them all who has said 
anything new in reference to our future destiny, to the 
soul, to the essence of God, to the creation. Enter the 
sanctuaries of paganism. You there find perfect chaos, a 
thousand contradictions, war between the gods, the im- 
mobility of sculpture, the division and the rending of 
unity, the parceling out of the divine attributes muti- 
lated or denied in their essence, the sophisms of igno- 
rance and presumption, polluted fetes, impurity and abom- 
ination adored ; all sorts of corruption festering in the thick 
shades, with the rotten wood, the idol, and his priest 
Does this honor God, or does it dishonor him? Are these 
religions and these gods to be compared with Christianity? 

"As for me, I say no. I summon entire Olympus 
to my tribunal. I judge the gods, but am far from pros- 
trating myself before their vain images. The gods, the 
legislators of India and of China, of Eome and of Ath- 
ens, have nothing which can overawe me. Not that 1 
am unjust to them! No; I appreciate them, because I 
know their value. Undeniably princes, whose existence 
is fixed in the memory as an image of order and of pow- 
er, as the ideal of force and beauty, such princes were 
no ordinary men. 



336 



NOTES TO 



. "I see in Lycurgus, Numa, and Mohammed, only leg- 
islators, who, having the first rank in the State, have 
sought the best solution of the social problem; but I see 
nothing there which reveals divinity. They themselves 
have never raised their pretensions so high. As for me, 
I recognize the gods and these great men as beings like 
myself. They have performed a lofty part in their times, 
as I have done. Nothing announces them divine. On 
the contrary, there are numerous resemblances between 
them and myself; foibles and errors which ally them to 
me and to humanity. 

" It is not so with Christ. Every thing in him aston- 
ishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds 
me. Between him and whoever else in the world, there 
is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being 
by himself. His ideas and his sentiments, the truths 
which he announces, his manner of convincing, are not 
explained either by human organization or by the nature 
of things. 

"His birth, and the history of his life; the profundity 
of his doctrine, which grapples the mightiest difficulties, 
and which is of those difficulties the most admirable solu- 
tion; his gospel, his apparition, his empire, his march 
across the ages and the realms — every thing is, for me, a 
prodigy, a mystery insoluble, which plunges me into a rev- 
erie from which I can not escape — a mystery which is 
there before my eyes — a mystery which I can neither 
deny nor explain, Here I see nothing human. 



THIRD LECTURE. 



337 



"The nearer I approach, the more carefully I examine, 
every thing is above me — every thing remains grand, of 
a grandeur which overpowers. His religion is a revela- 
tion from an intelligence which certainly is not that of 
man. There is there a profound originality, which has 
created a series of words and of maxims before unknown. 
Jesus borrowed nothing from our sciences.- One can ab- 
solutely find nowhere, but in him alone, the imitation or 
the example of his life. He is not a philosopher, since 
he advances by miracles, and from the commencement 
his disciples worshiped him. He persuades them far more 
by an appeal to the heart than by any display of method 
and of logic. Neither did he impose upon them any pre- 
liminary studies, or any knowledge of letters. All his 
religion consists in believing. 

1 'In fact, the sciences and philosophy avail nothing for 
salvation; and Jesus came into the world to reveal the 
mysteries of heaven and the laws of the spirit. Also, he 
has nothing to do but with the soul, and to that alone he 
brings his gospel. The soul is sufficient for him, as he 
is sufficient for the soul. Before him, the soul was noth- 
ing. Matter and time were the masters of the world. At 
his voice every thing returns to order. Science and phi- 
losophy become secondary. The soul has re-conquered its 
sovereignty. All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as an edi- 
fice ruined, before one single word — Faith, 

"What a master and what a word, which can effect 
euch a revolution! With what authority does he teach 



338 



NOTES TO 



men to pray! He imposes his belief. And no one, thus 
far, has been able to contradict him; first, because the 
gospel contains the purest morality, and also because the 
doctrine which it contains of obscurity, is only the pro- 
clamation and the truth of that which exists where no 
eye can see and no reason can penetrate. Who is the 
insensate who will say No to the intrepid voyager who 
recounts the marvels of the icy peaks which he alone has 
had the boldness to visit? Christ is that bold voyager. 
One can doubtless remain incredulous. But no one can 
venture to say, It is not so. 

"Moreover, consult the philosophers upon those mys- 
terious questions which relate to the essence of man and 
the essence of religion. What is their response? Where 
is the man of good sense who has ever learned any thing 
from the system of metaphysics, ancient or modern, which 
is not truly a vain and pompous ideology, without any 
connection with our domestic life, with our passions? Un- 
questionably, with skill in thinking, one can seize the key 
of the philosophy of Socrates and Plato. But to do this, 
it is necessary to be a metaphysician; and moreover, with 
years of study, one must possess special aptitude. But . 
good sense alone, the heart, an honest spirit, are suffi- 
cient to comprehend Christianity. 

"The Christian religion is neither ideology nor me- 
taphysics, but a practical rule, which directs the aptions 
of man, corrects him, counsels him, and assists hisa in all 
his conduct. The Bible contains a complete series of 



THIRD LECTURE. S39 

facts and of historical men, to explain time and eternity, 
such as no other religion has to offer. If this is not the 
true religion, one is very excusable in being deceived ; for 
everything in it is grand and worthy of God. I search 
in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or 
anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, 
nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature offer me anything 
with which I am able to compare it or to explain it. 
Here everything is extraordinary. The more I consider 
the gospel, the more I am assured that there is nothing 
there which is not beyond the march of events, and above 
the human mind. Even the impious themselves have 
never dared to deny the sublimity of the gospel, which 
inspires them with a sort of compulsory veneration. What 
happiness that book procures for those who believe it! 
What marvels those admire there who reflect upon it! 

"All the words there are imbedded and joined one 
upon another, like the stones of an edifice. The spirit 
which binds these words together is a divine cement, which 
now reveals the sense, and again vails it from the mind. 
Each phrase has a sense complete, which traces the per- 
fection of unity and the profundity of the whole. Book 
unique, where the mind finds a moral beauty before un- 
known, and an idea of the Supreme, superior even to that 
which creation suggests. Who, but God, could produce 
that type, that idea of perfection, equally exclusive and 
original ? 

"Christ, having but a few weak disciples, was con- 



340 



NOTES TO 



demned to death. He died the object of the wrath of the 
Jewish priests, and of the contempt of the nation, and 
abandoned and denied by his own disciples. 

"They are about to take me, and to crucify me, said 
he. I shall be abandoned of all the world. My chief 
disciple will deny me at the commencement of my pun- 
ishment. I shall be left to the wicked. But then, divine 
justice being satisfied, original sin being expiated by my 
sufferings, the bond of man to God will be renewed, and 
my death will be the life of my disciples. Then they 
will be more strong without me than with me; for they 
will see me rise again. I shall ascend to the skies; and 
I shall send to them, from heaven, a Spirit who will in- 
struct them. The Spirit of the cross will enable them to 
understand my gospel. In fine, they will believe it ; they 
will preach it; and they will convert the world. 

"And this strange promise, so aptly called by Paul 
the 'foolishness of the cross," this prediction of one mise- 
rably crucified, is literally accomplished. And the mode 
of the accomplishment is perhaps more prodigious than 
the promise. 

"It is not a day, nor a battle which has decided it. 
Is it the lifetime of a man? No! It is a war, a long 
combat of three hundred years, commenced by the apos- 
tles and continued by their successors and by succeeding 
generations of Christians. In this conflict all the kings 
and all the forces of the earth were arrayed on one side. 
Upon the other I see no army, but a mysterious energy 



THIRD LECTURE. 



341 



individuals scattered here and there, in all parts of the 
globe, having no other rallying sign than a common faith 
in the mysteries of the cross. 

"What a mysterious symbol! the instrument of the 
punishment of the Man-God. His disciples were armed 
with it. 'The Christ,' they said, 'God has died for the 
salvation of men.' What a strife, what a tempest these 
simple words have raised around the humble* standard of 
the punishment of the Man-God! On the one side, we 
see rage and all the furies of hatred and violence. On 
the other, there is gentleness, moral courage, infinite resig- 
nation. For three hundred years spirit struggled against 
the brutality of sense, conscience against despotism, the 
soul against the bodyj virtue against all the vices. The 
blood of Christians flowed in torrents. They died kissing 
the hand which slew them. The soul alone protested, 
while the body surrendered itself to all tortures. Every- 
where Christians fell, and everywhere they triumphed. 

"You speak of Caesar, of Alexander; of their conquests, 
and of the enthusiasm which they enkindled in the hearts 
of their soldiers. But can you conceive of a dead man 
making conquests, with an army faithful and entirely de- 
voted to his memory. My armies have forgotten me, even 
while living, as the Carthagenian army forgot Hannibal. 
Such is our power! A single battle lost crushes us, and 
adversity scatters our friends. 

"Can you conceive of Caesar as the eternal emperor 
of the Eoman senate, and from the depths of his mauso- 



342 



NOTES TO 



leum governing the empire, watching over the destinies 
of Eome? Such is the history of the invasion and con- 
quest of the world by Christianity. Such is the power 
of the God of the Christians; and such is the perpetual 
miracle of the progress of the faith and of the govern- 
ment of His Church. Nations pass away, thrones crum- 
ble, but the church remains. What is then the power 
which has protected this church, thus assailed by the fu- 
rious billows of rage and the hostility of ages? Whose 
is the arm which, for eighteen hundred years, has pro- 
tected the church from so many storms which have threat- 
ened to engulf it? 

"Alexander, Cgesar, Charlemagne, and myself found- 
ed empires. But upon what did we rest the creations 
of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded 
his empire upon love: and at this hour millions of men 
would die for him. 

" In every other existence but that of Christ, how 
many imperfections? Where is the character which has 
not yielded, vanquished by obstacles? Where is the in- 
dividual who has never been governed by circumstances 
or places, who has never succumbed to the influence of 
the times, who has never compounded with any customs 
or passions? From the first day to the last he is the 
same, always the same: majestic and simple, infinitely firm 
and infinitely gentle. 

''Truth should embrace the universe. Such is Chris- 
tianity, the only religion which destroys sectional preju- 



THIED LECTURE. 



343 



dice, the only one which proclaims the unity and the 
absolute brotherhood of the whole human family, the 
only one which is purely spiritual; in fine, the only 
one which assigns to all, without distinction, for a true 
country, the bosom of the Creator, God. Christ proved 
that he was the son of the Eternal, by his disregard of 
time. All his doctrines signify only one and the same 
thing, Eternity. 

"It is true that Christ proposes to our faith a series 
of mysteries. He commands, with authority, that we 
should believe them, giving no other reason than those 
tremendous words, ' 2" am God? He declares it. What 
an abyss he creates, by that declaration, between himself 
and all the fabricators of religion. What audacity, what 
sacrilege, what blasphemy, if it were not true! I say 
more; the universal triumph of an affirmation of that kind, 
if the triumph were not really that of God himself, would 
be a plausible excuse, and the proof of atheism. 

"Moreover, in propounding mysteries Christ is harmo- 
nious with nature, which is profoundly mysterious. From 
whence do I come? whither do I go? who am I? Hu- 
man life is a mystery in its origin, its organization, and 
its end. In man and out of man, in nature, every thing 
is mysterious. And can one wish that religion should 
not be mysterious? The creation and the destiny of the 
world are an unfathomable abyss, as also is the creation 
and the destiny of each individual. Christianity at least 
does not evade these great questions. It meets them 



344 



NOTES TO 



boldly. And our doctrines are a solution of them for 
every one who believes. 

"The gospel possesses a secret virtue, a mysterious 
efficacy, a warmth which penetrates and soothes the heart. 
One finds, in meditating upon it, that which one experi- 
ences in contemplating the heavens. The gospel is not 
a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, 
which invades every thing which opposes its extension. 
Behold it upon this table, this book surpassing all others, 
(here the Emperor deferentially placed his hand upon it,) 
I never omit to read it, and every day with the same 
pleasure. 

"Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful 
ideas, admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like 
the battalions of a celestial army, and which produce in 
our soul the same emotion which one experiences in con- 
templating the infinite expanse of the skies, resplendent 
in a summer's night, with all the brilliance of the stars. 
Not only is our mind absorbed, it is controlled, and the 
soul can never go astray with this book for its guide. 
Once master of our spirit, the faithful gospel loves us. 
God even is our friend, our father, and truly our Grod. 
The mother has no greater care for the infant whom she 
nurses. 

"What a proof of the divinity of Christ! With an 
empire so absolute, he has but one single end, the spiri- 
tual melioration of individuals, the purity of conscience, 
the union to that which is true, the holiness of the soul. 



THIRD LECTURE. 



345 



"Christ speaks, and at once generations become his by 
stricter, closer ties than those of blood ; by the most sa- 
cred, the most indissoluble of all unions. He lights up the 
flame of a love which consumes self-love, which prevails 
over every other love. The founders of other religions 
never conceived of this mystical love, which is the essence 
of Christianity, and is beautifully called charity. In every 
attempt to effect this thing, namely, to make himself beloved, 
man deeply feels his own impotence. So that Christ's 
greatest miracle undoubtedly is, the reign of charity. 

"I have so inspired multitudes that they would die 
for me. God forbid that I should form any comparison 
between the enthusiasm of the soldier and Christian cha- 
rity, which are as unlike as their cause. 

"But, after all, my presence was necessary; the light- 
ning of my eye, my voice, a word from me ; then the sa- 
cred fire was kindled in their hearts. I do indeed possess 
the secret of this magical power, which lifts the soul, but 
I could never impart it to any one. None of my gene- 
rals ever learnt it from me. Nor have I the means of 
perpetuating my name and love for me in the hearts of 
men, and to effect these things without physical means. 

"Now that I am at St. Helena; now that I am alone 
chained upon this rock, who fights and wins empires for 
me ? who are the courtiers of my misfortune ? who thinks 
of me ? who makes efforts for me in Europe ? where are 
my friends? Yes, two or three, whom your fidelity im- 
mortalizes, you share, you console my exile." 



346 



NOTES TO 



Here the voice of the Emperor trembled with emotion, 
and for a moment he was silent. He then continued: 

"Yes, our life once shone with all the brilliance of 
the diadem and the throne; and yours, Bertrand, reflect- 
ed that splendor, as the dome of the Invalides, gilt by 
us, reflects the rays of the sun. But disasters came ; the 
gold gradually became dim. The rain of misfortune and 
outrage with which I am daily deluged has effaced all 
the brightness. We are mere lead now, General Bertrand, 
and soon I shall be in my grave. 

"Such is the fate of great men! So it was with Cae- 
sar and Alexander. And I, too, am forgotten. And the 
name of a conqueror and an emperor is a college theme! 
Our exploits are tasks given to pupils by their tutor, who 
sit in judgment upon us, awarding us censure or praise. 
And mark what is soon to become of me ; assassinated by 
the English oligarchy, I die before my time ; and my dead 
body, too, must return to the earth, to become food for 
worms. Behold the destiny, near at hand, of him who 
has been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss be- 
tween my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ, 
which is proclaimed, loved, adored, and which is extend- 
ing over all the earth. Is this to die? Is it not rather 
to live? The death of Christ! It is the death of God." 

For a moment the Emperor was silent. As General 
Bertrand made no reply, he solemnly added, "If you do 
not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well, then I 
did wrong to make you a general." 



THIRD LECTURE. 



347 



This is in many respects a remarkable confession of 
faith; and because it is so remarkable, I have quoted it 
at such length. It contains internal proofs of its authen- 
ticity which cannot well be questioned. From beginning 
to end, it bears the image of the man himself; and yet 
in several of the views it contains, it is so closely allied 
to the argument in Dr. Bogue's book, that we are led to 
see how carefully Napoleon must have studied the volume. 

I have made the quotation from the Eev. Mr. Abbott's 
Life of Napoleon. No one who is acquainted with that 
writer, will doubt his fidelity. His admiration of Napo- 
leon's character may be too enthusiastic, and his inferences 
at times may not be legitimately drawn. These are points 
on which there will always be a difference of opinion re- 
specting the Alexanders, the Caesars, and the Napoleons 
who have appeared in our world. But Mr. Abbott should 
be allowed full credit for the patient labor with which 
he has investigated facts, and for the lucid and happy 
manner in which he has wrought them into history. 

Page 123. 

In giving the character of Lord Bacon, I have not 
been unmindful of the great blot that rests on the name 
of this great man. Although it was only in virtue of 
Poetic License that Pope could be justified in calling him 



The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind; 



318 



NOTES TO THIRD LECTURE. 



his crime as a Judge cannot be excused because it was 
one of the vices so prevalent in his day. Nothing is 
gained to the cause of religion by defending or ignoring 
the faults of its advocates. It is not in this spirit that 
the Bible describes its illustrious characters. As if to 
stain the pride of human glory by their fall, strong men 
are often assailed and overcome by strong temptations; 
and with this plea on their behalf, we should at least be 
cautious in pronouncing judgment upon those who may 
have startled a whole world by their signal departure 
from rectitude. 

Be this as it may in Bacon's case, it does not destroy 
the value of his testimony to the truth of Christianity as 
a subject of intellectual investigation. Even his worst 
enemies could not deny him the distinction of a great 
mind; and when he brought it to bear on the inspiration 
and excellence of the Bible, we see what was his delib- 
erate conclusion. 



Mas i*twra ssssw 



Page 178. 

I am aware of the discredit that some of Voltaire's 
friends have endeavored to cast upon the physician who 
attended the dying man. He has been called a quack, 
Would they have us believe that Voltaire's life was con- 
sidered of so little value, that it was committed to the 
care of a quack doctor? The truth is, Paris was consid- 
ered at the time, as having no better physician in the 
whole city than the man who was called to attend Vol- 
taire in his last illness, and nothing was heard of his be- 
ing a quack, till the world heard from him the frightful 
story of Voltaire's remorse when approaching eternity. 

The whole account of Voltaire's death contained in 
the Lecture, is taken chiefly from the Abbe Bamiel's 
"Anti-Christian Conspiracy;" and as it has been the 
fashion in certain quarters to question his authority, I 
here make an extract from his work, which may enable 
us to judge how far he had evidence to bear him out 
in what he has stated. 

Having alluded to Voltaire's public triumph in his 

last visit to Paris, and to the sudden hemorrhage which 

22 



850 



NOTES TO 



threatened his life, conscious that he was about to describe 
a scene from which many would be inclined to turn away 
with horror, he says, 

"Here let not the historian fear exaggeration. Rage, 
remorse, reproach and blasphemy, all, accompany and 
characterize the long agony of the dying Atheist. This 
death, the most terrible that is ever recorded to have 
stricken the impious man, will not be denied by his com- 
panions of impiety; their silence, however much they 
may wish to deny it, is the least of those corroborative 
proofs which could be adduced. Not one of the Sophis- 
ters has ever dared to mention any sign given, of reso- 
lution or tranquility, by this premier chief, during the 
space of three months, which elapsed from the time he 
was crowned at the theatre, until his decease. Such a 
silence expresses how great their humiliation was in his 
death. 

"It was on his return from the theatre, and in the 
midst of the toils he was resuming in order to acquire 
fresh applause, when Voltaire was warned that the long 
career of his impiety was drawing to an end. 

"In spite of all the Sophisters flocking around him in 
the first days of his illness, he gave signs of wishing to 
return to the God he had so often blasphemed. He calls 
for the priests who ministered to Him whom he had sworn 
to crush, under the appellation of the wretch. His danger 
increasing, he wrote the following note to the Abbe Gaul- 
tier. 'You had promised me, Sir, to come and hear me. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



351 



I entreat you would take the trouble of calling as soon 
as possible. Signed, Yoltaire.' 

Paris, the 26th Feb. 1778." 

A few days after, he wrote the following declaration, 
in presence of the same Abbe Gaultier, the Abbe Mignot 
and the Marquis de Yillevieille, copied from the minutes 
deposited with Mr. Momet, Notary at Paris. 

<U I the underwritten, declare that for these four days 
past, having been afflicted with a vomiting of blood, at 
the age of eighty-four, and not having been able to drag 
myself to the church, the Eev. the Eector of St Sulpice, 
having been pleased to add to his good works that of 
sending to me the Abbe Gaultier, a priest; I confessed 
to him, and if it pleases God to dispose of me, I die in 
the Holy Catholic Church, in which I was born; hoping 
that the divine mercy will deign to pardon all my faults ; 
and if ever I have scandalized the Church, I ask pardon 
of God and of the Church. 2nd March, 1778. Signed, 
Yoltaire: in presence of the Abbe Mighot my nephew, 
and the Marquis de Yillevieille my friend.' 

"After the two witnesses had signed this declaration, 
Yoltaire added these words, copied from the same min- 
utes: 'The Abbe Gaultier, my confessor, having apprised 
me that it was said among a certain set of people, I 
should protest against every thing I did at my death ; 
I declare I never made such a speech, and that it is an 
old jest attributed, long since, to many of the learned, 
more enlightened than I am.' * * * 



352 



NOTES TO 



"Voltaire had permitted this declaration to be carried 
to the Kector of St. Sulpice, and to the Archbishop of 
Paris, to know whether it would be sufficient. When 
the Abbe Gaultier returned with the answer, it was im- 
possible for him to gain admittance to the patient. The 
conspirators had strained every nerve to hinder the chief 
from consummating his recantation, and every avenue was 
shut to the priest which Voltaire himself had sent for. 
The demons haunted every access; but rage succeeds to 
fury, and fury to rage again during the remainder of his 
life. Then it was that D'Alembert, Diderot, and about 
twenty other of the conspirators, who had beset his apart- 
ment, never approached him, but to witness their own ig- 
nominy; and often he would curse them and exclaim, 
4 Eetire, it is you that have brought me to my present 
state; begone, I could have done without you all, but 
you could not exist without me, and what a wretched 
glory have you procured me.' 

"Then would succeed the horrid remembrance of his 
conspiracy ; they could hear him, the prey of anguish and 
dread, alternately supplicating or blaspheming that God 
whom he had conspired against, and in plaintive accents 
would he cry out, 1 Oh Christ ! Oh Jesus Christ !' and 
then complain that he was abandoned by God and man. 
The hand which had traced in ancient writ the sentence 
of an impious revelling king, seemed to trace before his 
eyes Crush then, do crush the wretch. In vain he turned 
his head away, the time was coming apace when he was 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



353 



to appear before the tribunal of him he had blasphemed ; 
and his physicians, particularly Mr. Tronchin, calling in 
to administer relief, thunderstruck retires, declaring the 
death of the impious man to be terrible indeed. The 
pride of the conspirators would willingly have suppressed 
these declarations, but it was in vain; the Mareschal de 
Eichelieu flies from the bedside, declaring it to be a sight 
too terrible to be sustained; and Mr. Tronchin, that the 
furies of Orestes could give but a faint idea of tho&e of 
Voltaire. 

"Thus died, on the 30th of May, 1778, rather worn 
out by his own fury than by the weight of years, the 
most unrelenting conspirator against Christianity, that has 
been seen since the time of the Apostles. His persecution, 
longer and more perfidious than those of ISTero or Dio- 
cletian had yet only produced apostates, but they were 
more numerous than the martyrs made in the former 
persecutions." 

It should be remembered that this, or a similar ac- 
count, was published while the events themselves were 
yet fresh in the recollection of the public, and while men 
or their intimate friends were yet living, who are referred 
to by name as witnesses of what is told. "Written docu- 
ments also, with day and date, are quoted and appealed 
to, in proof of the narrative. " Different accounts," it is 
said, " are given of Voltaire's death." "Where is the dif- 
ferent account that is supported by evidence like this? 



354 



NOTES TO 



Page 202. 

Although in the memorable deaths of Christians enu- 
merated in this Lecture, I have generally confined my- 
self to those who have not only avowed their faith in 
Christianity, but have distinguished themselves in defend- 
ing and teaching its doctrines ; I will not deny myself the 
gratification of referring in this connection to the last hours 
of Daniel Webster. His testimony to the inestimable 
worth of the Bible, was freely and repeatedly given dur- 
ing his life, and his death was remarkable for a compo- 
sure and a trustful humility of spirit, that rendered the 
scene very impressive and touching. I take the follow- 
ing description of it from a sermon preached by the Eev. 
C. M. Butler, in whose church Mr. Webster had for 
years been a worshipper. It was Mr. Webster's happi- 
ness, to be attended in his last illness by a pious phy- 
sician, who at Mr. Butler's request furnished the incidents 
which were embodied in the discourse. 

"I was assured," said Dr. Jeffries, "early in the sick- 
ness of Mr. Webster, that he understood the danger of 
his situation. As the disease progressed, he knew that it 
would be soon fatal; and he was the first to fix upon a 
definite time when he should die. But he was not dis- 
posed to speak of it, as I think, because he knew it 
would be distressing to his friends. He acted on this 
knowledge from the earliest period of my attendance : 
every thing he did had a reference to this result. I had 



FOURTH LECTURE. 355 

no conversation with him on the subject of his death until 
it was near, and but little on serious subjects; that little, 
however, showed distinctly his views on this important 
subject; and, together with what I otherwise heard and 
observed, served to illustrate satisfactorily his religious 
character. 

" The few facts I have to present to you are as follows : 
"On leaving Mr. Webster for the night at half past 
eleven, on Saturday, October 16, 1852, I asked him if I 
should repeat to him a hymn at parting, to which he 
gave a ready assent ; when I repeated the hymn, 

There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 

Lose all their guilty stains. 

The dying thief rejoiced to see 

That fountain in his day; 
And there may I, as vile as he, 

Wash all my sins away. 

Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood 

Shall never lose its power 
Till all the ransomed Church of God 

Be saved to sin no more. 

E'er since by faith, I saw the stream, 

Thy flowing wounds supply, 
Redeeming love has been my theme, 

And shall be till I die. 



356 



NOTES TO 



Then in a nobler, sweeter, song, 

I'll sing thy power to save; 
"When this poor lisping, stammering tongue, 

Lies silent in the grave. 

" He gave very serious attention to the recital, and at 
the close he said, 1 Amen, amen, even so come Lord Jesus.* 
This was uttered with great solemnity. He afterwards 
asked me if I remembered the verse in one of Watt's 
hymns on the thought of dying at the foot of the Cross, 
and repeated these lines with remarkable energy and 
feeling : 

'"Should worlds conspire to drive me hence, 
Moveless and firm this heart should lie, 
Resolved, (for that's my last defence,) 
If I must perish — here to die.' 

After this he said that ■ he owed it to his fellow-country- 
men to express his deep conviction of the divine inspira- 
tion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and had embodied 
some thoughts which he gave to Mr. Edward Curtis. 

"He repeated the text, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved,' and then, what he had 
given to be inscribed upon his tombstone, which was as 
follows : 

"'Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief.' 

"'Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from 
the vastness of the Universe, in comparison with the ap- 



FOURTH LECTURE. 



357 



parent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken 
my reason for the faith which is in me ; but my heart has 
always assured and re-assured me, that the Grospel of Je- 
sus Christ must be a Divine reality. 

" 1 The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely hu- 
man production. This belief enters into the very depth 
of my conscience. 

" 1 The whole history of man proves it. 

" 1 DANIEL WEBSTER.' 

" He afterwards said that he wished also to leave some- 
where his testimony in favor of early piety; that he was 
familiar with all the great poets, Pope, Dryden, Cowper, 
Milton, and others, but that the hymns of Watts, from his 
cradle hymns to his verson of the Psalms, and other 
deeper hymns, were always uppermost in his mind and 
on his tongue; that he could repeat them faster than four 
scribes could write them down. 

" He conveyed very strongly by his remarks, that his 
early religious instruction and acquirements had always 
had the most profound and abiding influence upon his 
mind and life. 

" I was informed by Mrs. Webster, about a fortnight 
before his death, that he had been speaking to her of his 
case, and expressed the apprehension that it would ter- 
minate fatally ; he then appeared to consider his prepara- 
tion for the event, and clasping his hands, he said, with 
deep emotion, 'I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ' 



358 



NOTES TO 



"A short time before lie became unable to express Ms 
thoughts, he appeared to be engaged in silent prayer, (as 
I often noticed his appearance to indicate during his sick- 
ness,) when he gave utterance to something — a few words 
of which were low and lost by me ; that which followed 
was — 1 but whatsoever I do, Almighty God, receive me to 
Thyself for Jesus Christ's sake.' He also exclaimed, ' I 
shall be to-night in life, and joy, and blessedness.' " 



wag s® grass ag(gffiwag 3 



Page 222. 

The claim of Greece to have been the parent of the 
Polite Arts, especially of Architecture, has been so gen- 
erally admitted, and to such an unqualified extent, that I 
feel bound to fortify the position I have taken on behalf 
of the Hebrew nation, by authorities which cannot be dis- 
puted. As the works to which I chiefly refer are not of 
ready access, I will make full extracts from two of them 
which are named in the Lecture, and in which the ques- 
tion is treated with much learning and ability. I am indebt- 
ed to that well known architect, Alexander J. Davis, Esq. 
for his kindness in placing both of them within my reach. 

Wood's " Origin of Building, or The Plagiarism of the 
Heathens detected," was published in 1741 ; and like many 
works written at that period, shows patient research and 
a thorough acquaintance with all authorities, ancient or 
modern, sacred or profane, which have any bearing on 
the subject. He refers largely to Vitruvius who compiled 
much of his elaborate work on Architecture from the 
writings of the most celebrated architects of Greece; and 
as a sentiment held in common by them all, he tells us, 



360 



NOTES TO 



"The chance or fortune which superintended the rise 
of everything curious in Architecture," was, under all its 
appellations, esteemed by the ancients as a divine power, 
and no less than God alone. And indeed if we examine 
into the writings of the most eminent authors of ancient 
history, as well sacred as profane, we shall find them all 
confess, that the knowledge our ancestors first had in arts 
and sciences was given them immediately by God. And 
therefore, though Yitruvius lays it down as a principle, 
that mankind are by nature teachable, and inclined to 
imitation, he has nevertheless declared, they were above 
three thousand years before they, even by chance, did 
any thing worthy to be recorded, and that many centu- 
ries passed before another step was taken towards perfec- 
tion in their works of Architecture." 

Having described the rude structures that were reared 
in the early ages of the world, or during these thousands 
of years, in which men seem to have borrowed most of 
their conceptions in building from beasts of the field and 
birds of the air, Mr. "Wood comes to the period at which 
the Tabernacle was erected by Moses in the Wilderness, 
"according to the pattern shown to him in the mount, n 
stating, what he satisfactorily proves, that 

'In works of Architecture, before the Tabernacle was 
erected, the effect, or the labor of the hands, in a great 
measure, preceded the cause, or the labor of the mind; 
and consequently the buildings so performed must be 



FIFTH LECTUEE. 



361 



without order, proportion, or any other character that 
could render them beautiful.' 

"But in the Tabernacle, the cause preceded ine effect, 
the fabric was presented to the mind perfectly finished, 
the magnitude of every individual part was undoubtedly 
given, and the whole was explained in the most compre- 
hensive terms, previous to the execution of it: And as 
the highest demonstration that Architecture was not then 
arrived to such a degree of perfection as to afford any 
one among those whose lives had been spent under bond- 
age among the Egyptians, in the building art, capable of 
working after prescribed rules and a just pattern, God, at 
the same time that he directed the Tabernacle to be 
built, determined it necessary to fill all those that were 
wise-hearted with his own spirit in wisdom and understand- 
ing, to enable them to perform that sample of new and 
perfect Architecture." 

This Tabernacle though designed for religious services 
in the worship of the true God, is shown to have had 
its influence in revolutionizing the manner of building 
for the purposes of personal comfort and convenience as 
well as for devotion both among the Hebrews and among 
other nations; and having dwelt upon this topic through 
several chapters, showing the progress of Building from 
the time of Moses to the concluding years in the reign 
of David, he proceeds to describe the erection of the Tem- 
ple by Solomon. This wonderful structure, as the Bible 



362 



NOTES TO 



expressly declares, was built according to the plan laid 
down before Solomon and the princes, Priests and Levites, 
by David; who declared when he laid it before them, 
"All this the Lord made me understand in writing by 
his hand upon me." 

The situation of the Temple, its parts and proportions, 
its courts and its furniture, and the time and labor taken 
in the erection of the edifice, are all described by the 
author with a singular minuteness. After which he adds, 

"By this Temple, Architecture was brought to the 
highest perfection ; from this Temple, and the Tabernacle, 
the choicest examples of building among the ancients 
were copied; and from the Tabernacle and Temple we 
hope we shall be able to prove, undeniably, that the 
Dorich, Ionick and Corinthian Orders of Columns were 
taken. These Orders we shall treat of after we have 
recited some of the great works for which Egypt, As- 
syria, Media, Babylonia, Greece and Italy are so remark- 
able in History." 

It is no more than justice to the author, to say that 
he has brought abundance of proof to show that the 
architecture of these various nations was largely indebted 
to the Temple at Jerusalem. But I do not make any 
farther quotations from his learned Volume, as I wish to 
reserve space, the more fully to exhibit the argument of 
Mr. Wilkins. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



363 



This gentleman has a world-wide fame as an archi- 
tect. He was Begins Professor of Architecture in the 
Boyal Academy, and for a time a Senior Fellow of Cains 
College in the University of Cambridge. He had access 
to every source of information which he could desire, 
spent his life in making them all available for high cul- 
tivation in his profession, and in his various productions 
he writes with the elegance and perspicuity of a finished 
scholar. His Yitruvius, and his Antiquities of Magna 
Graecia published more than forty years ago, are ac- 
knowledged as standard works ; and his Essays or Pro- 
lusiones Architectonics were prepared and given to the 
world at a later period, as his matured views on the 
several subjects which they embrace. It is the Essay en- 
titled "The Temple at Jerusalem, the type of Grecian 
Architecture," from which I take the following: 

"The history of the Jewish nation offers to the con- 
sideration of the philosopher and the historian many pe- 
culiar circumstances, no where else exemplified in any 
one branch of the great family of mankind, originating 
from one common stem. Although, as from the sources 
of some great river whose stream is augmented by tribu- 
tary waters, a portion of the primary element is carried 
through distinct and distant nations, the decendants of 
those races who separated on the dispersion of mankind, 
preserve some points of resemblance in the forms of their 
civil and religious observances, which an analysis will 
trace to the same common origin; yet in all the charac- 



364 



NOTES TO 



teristics which, distinguish the Israelites from other nations, 
the difference is wide. The most remarkable of the dis- 
tinctions which divide the Jewish people from the rest of 
the world, is the immutability of their laws. The code 
bequeathed to them by their great law-giver contains, a 
modern writer has observed, 'the only complete body of 
law which was ever given to a people at one time — that 
it is the only entire body of law which has come down 
to our days — that it is the only body of ancient law 
which still governs an existing people — that the nation 
which it respects being scattered over the face of the 
whole earth, it is the only body of law that is equally 
observed in the four quarters of the globe — and, finally, 
that all the other codes of law, of which history has pre- 
served any recollection, were given to communities who 
already had written statutes, but who wished to change 
their form or modify their application; whereas, in this 
case, we behold a new society under the hands of a leg- 
islator who proceeds to lay its very foundations.' 

"By far the most interesting of the considerations con- 
nected with the history of this singular people, are those 
connected with Christianity. 'In opposition to their own 
wishes,' says the same learned writer, 1 they laid the foun- 
dation of a religion which has not only superseded their 
peculiar rites, but is rapidly advancing to that universal 
acceptation which they were wont to anticipate in favor 
of their own ancient law.' 

" The most brilliant era in the history of this nation 



FIFTH LECTUKE. 



365 



is that which immediately followed the accession of Solo- 
mon, the great glory of whose reign is identified with the 
erection of the temple. Although this great undertaking 
was mainly subservient to spiritual purposes, the advan- 
tages arising from its construction were widely spread, 
and exercised an almost boundless influence over other 
important objects. It was in the reign of this prince, 
and a consequence arising from this act of piety, that 
the Hebrews first became a commercial people. It is 
proved, on the authority of the sacred writings, that 
in pursuing this vast undertaking, the monarch was un- 
der the necessity of employing foreign artists, and of 
procuring one of the most essential materials for building 
from a distant source. In return for the works of metal, 
and of everything connected with the sculptor's art, the 
natural productions of Palestine were exchanged, with 
those mutual advantages which form the basis of interna- 
tional commerce. The subsistence of the multitudes em- 
ployed in this vast work called forth the energies and 
resources of agriculture. 

"These circumstances of unremitting industry are 
intimately connected with the history of art ; and occurring 
at a period of history when tradition was exchanged for 
authentic documents, it follows that additional interest is 
excited in the mind of the archaeologist and the historian. 

"The chief object of the present dissertation is to 
show the influence produced on the arts by the com- 
mencement and accomplishment of this great enterprise, 

23 



366 



NOTES TO 



and the example it afforded to the architects of the ages 
immediately following, as yet unskilled in architecture, 
and wanting some type of great authority for their guidance. 

"The earliest temples in Greece were built in the 
most simple of the forms enumerated by later writers. 
The great dramatist describes his sacred edifice, not in 
conformity with a more decorated kind, which had been 
introduced as much as seven centuries before our era, but 
with regard to the chronology of the events he represents. 
Thus the Temple of Diana, in the 'Iphigenia in Tauris, 
is described to be of this simple kind, because the plot 
of his drama was laid at a very remote period, and no 
circumstance prevented him from representing an imagi- 
nary building as one of a primitive form. In the 'Ion,' 
however, although the fable of the drama may be referred 
to a still earlier age, it was necessary to make the 
description of the temple at Delphi accord with the then 
existing edifice, which was well known to the audiences 
of his age. The temple has a portico, cella, and adytum; 
the pediments are adorned with sculpture, which the 
watchful care of Ion preserves free from the pollution of 
the winged tribes. The labors of Hercules are represent- 
ed probably on the metopes. The battle of the Giants 
was also sculptured probably on the walls of the peribo- 
lus.. Armor was suspended on the epistylia, in the same 
manner as the golden shields of the Parthenon. 

The form of the temple adopted at the earliest period 
of temple-building in Greece was that termed by Yitru- 



FIFTH LECTUEE. 867 

vius in AntiSy that is to say, a building having a cella, 
with a pronaos formed by the interposition of two co- 
lumns between the extended walls of the cella: some- 
times an opisthodomus or posticum was added in the 
rear. The very ancient temple at Ehamnus was built 
with a cella only, and an advanced vestibule before it. 
As the art of building became better known, and as 
luxury increased, the whole of the simple temple was 
surrounded by a peristyle, and placed within a peribolus 
or inclosed area of considerable extent. The peribolus 
was sometimes a wall only; but frequently an elaborate 
portico, properly so called, surrounded the walls inward- 
ly. Upon these walls, and there only, were the paintings 
so frequently mentioned by ancient writings, where they 
were protected from the effects of the weather, and 
where they received light through the open intervals be- 
tween the columns. The inner court of the Jewish tem- 
ple was a peribolus of this kind, although perhaps it 
formed no part of the early Greek temple. Such omis- 
sion would not militate against the assumption that this 
was taken from a Syrian model ; because in the early 
introduction of an art, we are at first content to limit 
our performances to some modification of the type. 

It has until lately been universally admitted, that all 
temples in which ranges of columns are found within the 
cella were hypaethral; that is to say, they had a large 
aperture in the roof over the centre of the cella open • 
to the heavens. This erroneous opinion has no other 



368 



NOTES TO 



authority than a presumed correction of a passage in the 
text of Vitruvius, which is generally acknowledged to 
be as corrupt as it is at variance with the context. 

" There is an essential difference in the construction 
of Greek and Egyptian temples. The cella of the latter 
is of very limited dimensions; it is a mere o-wo? or 
sanctuary; the cella of Grecian temples, on the contrary, 
are frequently of considerable magnitude; there is some 
times an opisthodomus or inner sanctuary, but in gen- 
eral the cella was approached both in front and in the 
rear, the postern or opisthodomus at one end corres- 
ponding with the pronaos at the other. In the Parthe- 
non, indeed, the inner sanctuary of the more ancient 
temples has been retained, but it was not like that of 
the temple of Jerusalem— -the most sanctified part of the 
temple; on the contrary, it was applied to purposes of 
no religious tendency, — it was the treasury of the tem- 
ple. When we, therefore, institute a comparison between 
the Jewish temple and the sacred structures of Greece, 
we must expect to find a difference of arrangement, in 
conformity with the exigencies of the different and dis- 
tinct rites of the two people. With these allowances, we 
shall find an intimate correspondence of proportions, 
which will lead us to the conclusion that both were 
constructed upon similar principles ; and the necessary 
inference will follow, that the earlier examples were the 
prototypes of those of later times constructed in distant 
countries. If we compare the plan and proportions of 



FIFTH LECTURE. 309 

the Syrian temple with those of some of the earliest ex- 
amples of Grecian origin, such, for example, as those at 
Psestum and iEgina, a resemblance will be found to 
exist, that can only be attributed to the adoption of the 
same principles by the architects of Palestine and Greece 

"The arrangement and the dimensions of the Jew- 
ish temple are given so much at length in the sacred 
writings, that we are enabled to ascertain its size and 
ichnography with a great degree of precision; and I 
shall now proceed to show that a very extraordinary 
coincidence, both in proportion and in actual dimensions, 
existed between this and the temple at Psestum, that 
could only have originated in the intention of the pro- 
jectors of the latter to adopt the other as their model, 
and to adhere to it with as much precision as was con- 
sistent with the observance of different forms of worship 
in the two nations. We shall find, therefore, that the 
variation chiefly consists in those parts essential to the 
one, and unnecessary to the other ; or, to speak with 
greater precision, between the sanctuary of the Jewish 
temple and the posticum of the Grecian. 

" In order to prove this, it will be necessary to col- 
lect those passages in the sacred writings which refer to 
the construction of the several parts of the Syrian tem- 
ple, which, as they abound in technical terms, require 
the illustration of an architect by profession." 

Mr. Wilkins accordingly quotes the descript:on of 



370 



NOTES TO 



Solomon's temple as found in the Bible, and having 
given a careful analysis of the whole, he places the 
plans, sections and elevations of the Hebrew and Greek 
temples in immediate juxta-position ; and shows such a 
resemblance in dimension, proportion, and in all the 
great principles of construction, carried out in the essen- 
tial parts or features of both, as renders the conclusion 
irresistible, that the temple at Jerusalem had been adopt 
ed as a model for the temples of Greece. 

" In coming to such a conclusion," he goes on to say, 
" we are led to the inference that an intimate connexion 
existed between the countries in which they are seve- 
rally found; and that a mode of constructing temples was 
transmitted directly, and with little of the intermediate 
assistance of a third state. The interval between the 
foundation of the two temples is remarkable for the 
great intercourse which connected the eastern shores of 
the Mediterranean Sea with Greece and her colonies; and 
even those writers who contend that these were peopled 
by Egyptians, or by a race residing on the Delta of 
the Nile, admit that these Egyptians came originally 
from the shores of Syria. To me it appears, from a con- 
sideration of all that has been written on the subject, 
that we must regard Syria as the parent of the settlers 
in Greece. A rapid sketch of the position of Egypt, 
in regard to the islands of the Mediterranean and the 
shores of the Grecian continent, will tend, I think, to 
confirm this opinion ; but as this Question will be bet- 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



371 



ter discussed separately, I shall proceed to illustrate the 
passages which I have selected as corroborative of simi- 
lar principles, adopted by the builders of the two cele- 
brated temples to which I have alluded in the present 
Essay. Differences will be found to exist in the ar- 
rangements of the interior, dictated by the different 
rites, and the different appropriation of the temples 
within the walls: the ceremonials of two very distinct 
religions must necessarily demand distributions adapted 
to the performance of their religious observances. 

"The adyta of Grecian temples were open to the in- 
spection of all ranks of the people; and in the greater 
number of temples there was an approach to the cella 
at either end : whereas in the Jewish temple, the cella 
was only accessible by the ministers of religion, and the 
oracle was entered by the high priest alone. Thus, although 
the proportions externally might be similar, the division 
of the interior would be regulated by circumstances. 

In the porch of the Jewish temple we have the 
type of the Grecian vaog ev TtaQOXSTaXiiv the earliest and 
the simplest form of their sacred buildings. The peris- 
tyle was a later addition, made as the Greek colonies ad- 
vanced in population and wealth. This great advance 
toward magnificence was not made without reference 
to the early type whence an infant colony borrowed the 
essential part of their religious edifices, omitting such 
decoration as was otherwise useless and beyond the 
straitened means of the first settlers. 



372 



NOTES TO 



The Jewish temple appears to have been founded 
one thousand and fifteen years before Christ. Yery soon 
afterwards, temples were built in Greece and in some of 
the islands of the Archipelago, by colonies sent by Mi- 
nos from Crete. Minos was contemporary with Solomon, 
and had acquired a powerful fleet for the purposes of a 
commerce in which his subjects were engaged with most 
of the surrounding states. The most friendly intercourse 
subsisted between the Cretans and the Phoenicians at 
this period : the latter are stated to have manned the 
navy of the former. From such intimate connexion may 
have arisen the tradition related by Polydorus Yergilius, 
on the authority of Diogenes Laertius, that Epimenides 
of Crete was the first to erect temples in the Grecian 
communities. When we find it recorded that Epimeni- 
des lived 299 years, we may be assured that a family, 
and not an individual, of this name existed for this 
lengthened period ; and that the Hierotect and the So- 
phist flourished at distant intervals of time, the first as 
early as the ninth century before our era; and this will 
reconcile the assertion of Diogenes Laertius with the 
statement of Strabo. About the same period Daedalus 
flourished : his name is intimately connected with the early 
Greek colonies which settled in Sicily, where considerable 
remains of temples of the highest antiquity are still found. 

The actors in the events recorded, Minos and Dae- 
dalus, may be merely imaginary beings: whether they 
really existed, and took the active part assigned to 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



373 



them, will not affect the truth of the historical facts 
wjth which they have been identified. The Greeks were 
accustomed to throw an air of romance and mystery 
over all the incidents of a remote period: the common- 
est events were made to assume the appearance of mi- 
racles performed by the agency of imaginary beings. ' The 
fable of the Minotaur is one of this description : the ra- 
tional examiner will see nothing in it beyond the fact, 
that Athens was at this time a tributary state to Crete, 
and hence we might infer the connection between them, 
if the testimony of many varied and abstract events did 
not concur in placing this degree of active intercourse 
beyond all doubt. The chain which connects Syria and 
the great islands of the Eastern Archipelago with 

Greece, Sicily, and Magna-Graecia, connects also their 
« 

arts and architecture." 

The space which I have allotted in this note to the 
subject of Architecture, leaves me the less room for quot- 
ing authorities or proofs, showing how the knowledge of 
the Hebrews in other arts and sciences formed the basis 
on which surrounding and subsequent nations built their 
claims to eminence. Indeed the very large extent to 
which the poets and ethical writers of Greece and Eome 
borrowed from the Hebrew writings, has been so often 
proved, and in woiks extensively circulated, that there is 
the less occasion to quote from them. I may observe 
however, that there is one author who has given sc 



374 



FIFTH LECTURE. 



satisfactory though, a summary view of the interesting 
subject, that he is entitled to be named and commended 
to those who have not the means or the time to pursue 
their inquiries farther than he would lead them. I refer 
to " The Connection between the Sacred Writings and 
the Literature of Jewish and Heathen Authors, particu- 
larly that of the Classical ages, illustrated by Kobert 
Gray, D. D. Prebendary of Durham and Chichester, and 
Rector of Bishop Wearmouth." 



i 



Page 26G. 

It is said by several of Galileo's biographers, that im- 
mediately after he had gone through with his abjuration, 
he stamped on the floor, and whispered to one of his 
friends standing near him, "E pur si muove." "It does 
move though." 

Page 270. 

Sir David Brewster, in his interesting little volume en- 
titled The "Martyrs of Science," has shown how tri- 
umphantly Galileo might have .vindicated himself from 
the assaults made upon him, if he had possessed firmness 
enough to avail himself of his own advantages. 

"In studying with attention," says that accomplished 
philosopher, "this portion of scientific history, the reader 
will not fail to perceive that the Church of Eome was 
driven into a dilemma, from which the submission and 
abjuration of Galileo could alone extricate it. He who 
confesses a crime and denounces its atrocity, not only sanc- 
tions, but inflicts the punishment which is annexed to it. 



376 



NOTES TO 



Had Galileo declared his innocence and avowed his sen- 
timents, and had he appealed to the past conduct of the 
Church itself, to the acknowledged opinions of its digni- 
taries, and even to the acts of its Pontiffs, he would have 
at once confounded his accusers and escaped from their 
toils. After Copernicus, himself a Catholic priest, had 
openly maintained the motion of the earth and the sta- 
bility of the sun ; after he had dedicated the work which 
advocated these opinions to Pope Paul III, on the express 
ground that the authority of the Pontiff might silence the 
calumnies of those who attacked these opinions by argu- 
ments drawn from Scripture ; after the Cardinal Schonberg 
and the Bishop of Culm had urged Copernicus to pub- 
lish the new doctrines ; and after the Bishop of Ermeland 
aad erected a monument to commemorate his great disco- 
veries, how could the Church of Eome have appealed to 
its pontifical decrees as the ground of persecuting and 
punishing Galileo ? Even in later times the same doctrines 
had been propagated with entire toleration; nay, in the 
very year of Galileo's first persecution, Paul Anthony 
Foscarinus, a learned Carmelite monk, wrote a pamphlet, 
in which he illustrates and defends the mobility of the 
earth, and endeavors to reconcile to this new doctrine the 
passages of Scripture which had been employed to sub 
vert it. This very singular production was dated from 
the Carmelite convent at Naples; was dedicated to the 
very reverend Sebastian Fantoni, General of the Carmelite 
Order; and, sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities, it 



SIXT^! LECTURE. 377 

was published at Naples in 1615, the very year of the 
first persecution of Galileo. 

"Nor was this the only defence of the Copernican 
system which issued from the bosom of the Church. 
Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, published in 1622 
''An Apology for Galileo," and he even dedicates it to 
D. Boniface, cardinal of Cajeta. Nay, it appears from xne 
dedication that he undertook the work at the command 
of the cardinal, and that the examination of the question had 
been intrusted to the cardinal by the Holy Senate. After 
an able defence of his friend, Campanella refers, at the 
conclusion of his apology, to the suppression of Galileo's 
writings, and justly observes that the effect of such a 
measure would be to make them more generally read and 
more highly esteemed. The boldness of the apologist, how- 
ever, is wisely tempered with the humility of the eccle- 
siastic: and he concludes his work with the declaration, 
that in all his opinions, whether written or to be written, 
he submits himself to the opinions of the Holy Mother 
Church of Eome and to the judgment of his superiors. 

"By these proceedings of the dignitaries, as well as 
the clergy of the Church of Rome, which had been 
tolerated for more than a century, the decrees of the 
pontiffs against the doctrine of the earth's motion, were 
virtually repealed, and Galileo might have pleaded them 
with success in arrest of judgment. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, for himself and for science, he acted otherwise. 
By admitting their authority, he revived in fresh force 



378 



NOTES TO 



these obsolete and obnoxious enactments ; and by yield- 
ing to their power, he rivetted for another century the 
almost broken chains of spiritual despotism." 

As his comment on the whole melancholy story, 
Sir David makes the following remarks, which are 
equally important in themselves, and beautifully ex- 
pressed. 

"It is a curious fact in the annals of heresy and 
sedition, that opinions maintained with impunity by 
one individual, have, in the same age, brought others 
to the stake or to the scaffold. The results of deep re- 
search or extravagant speculation seldom provoke hos- 
tility when meekly announced as the deductions of 
reason or the convictions of conscience. As the dreams 
of a recluse or of an enthusiast, they may excite pity 
or call forth contempt ; but like seed quietly cast into 
the earth, they will rot and germinate according to the 
vitality with which they are endowed. But if new and 
startling opinions are thrown in the face of the commu- 
nity — if they are uttered in triumph or in insult — in 
contempt of public opinion, or in derision of cherished 
errors, they lose the comeliness of truth in the rancor of 
their propagation ; and they are like seed scattered in 
a hurricane, which only irritates and blinds the hus- 
bandman. * * * He who is allowed to take the start 
of his species, and to penetrate the veil which conceals 
from common minds the mysteries of nature, must not 



SIXTH LECTURE. 



379 



expect that the world will be patiently dragged at the 
chariot wheels of his philosophy. Mind has its inertia 
as well as matter, and its progress to truth -can only be 
insured by the gradual and patient removal of the ob- 
structions which surround it." 

It cannot be denied that Galileo had too much over- 
looked these salutary truths. But it might be offered in 
excuse for the reckless sarcasm which he poured upon 
his opponents, that he suffered great irritation from their 
mode of assailing him. It is said that the lion of the 
forest goes into the contest with entire self-possession 
when he meets an enemy which he views as somewhat 
his equal in strength ; but when assailed by the insects 
that sometimes creep into his mane, and fix their puny 
fangs in his flesh, he can be stung into the wildness of 
fury. Such were some of the small antagonists who 
vexed the spirit of Galileo. One of them, a Dominican 
Friar named Oaccini, employed the pulpit not only to 
attack the astronomer, but to represent astronomy itself 
as a thing forbidden by the Scriptures; taking for his 
text, "Ye men of Galilee why, stand ye gazing up into 
Heaven?" — the language of the Yulgate, from which he 
quoted, furnishing by a singular coincidence a pretext 
for the miserable pun which he tried to perpetrate on 
Galileo's name; and yet, contemptible as the artifice was, 
it is said, to have produced no small effect in those times 
of ignorance and superstition. 



380 



NOTES TO SIXTH LECTURE. 



It is not to be denied that others, besides the monks 
of Galileo's day, have been very slow to receive his 
philosophy. The following instance shows with what 
difficulty the strongest minds are sometimes disentangled 
from long habits of thought, especially on sacred subjects. 
Francis Turretin was no ordinary man. In the latter part 
of the seventeenth century, more than fifty years after 
the discoveries of Galileo had made themselves felt in 
the scientific world, he was Professor of Divinity at Ge- 
neva, and filled the place with great reputation to himself 
as a theologian. His memory is still perpetuated, and 
held in reverence in many Protestant churches, chiefly 
on account of his "Iristitutio Theologize Elencticso." 
And yet we find him affirming, "in opposition," as he 
says, " to certain philosophers," that " the sun and moon 
move in the heavens, and revolve around the earth, 
while the earth remains at rest;" and to prove his posi- 
tion he advances arguments, so unphilosophical and in 
conclusive, that they would go with many readers, to 
throw discredit on his whole system of theology. His 
example shows how important it is that Divines should 
keep up with the science of their day, and thrt they be 
furnished with the means of doing so. 



IFBEX. 



A. 

Addison, his opinion of testimony to religion at the 

hour of death, p. ...... 169 

Architecture of the Greeks borrowed from the 

Hebrews, pp 220-222 

Artists, distinguished, who embraced Christianity, p. . 119 
Astronomy, discoveries in, by Copernicus and Ga- 
lileo — instance of how they illustrate the lan- 
guage of the Bible, pp 271-273 

B. 

Bacon, Eoger, his early scientific discoveries, pp. . 110, 114 
Sir Francis, his character and work as a 

philosopher, pp 121-123, 137 

the part he acted in the spread of Inductive 

Philosophy, pp. . . . 254, 255, 260, 261 
Beattie, Dr. his £ Hermit ' — key to some of its most 

beautiful lines, pp. .... 135, 136 
his exposure of Hume's profligacy, pp. . 311, 312 
Bede, his employment and happiness when dying, pp. 187, 188 
Bible, its wonderful combination of variety with 

harmony, pp 51-53 

its anticipations of modern discoveries in 

science, pp 53-56 



390 



INDEX. 



Bible, its tendency to repress rash conclusions and 
to stimulate valuable discoveries in sci- 
ence, pp. . 53-55 

its claims upon our faith, pp. . . . 56-58 

the book of the human soul. p. . . 237 
its paramount claim to our faith derived from 
its internal evidence, and from its effects 

on the world, pp 141-147 

in itself a model of Inductive Philosophy, pp. 252-254 
its superior antiquity proved by its reference 

to Egyptian customs, pp. . . . 292, 293 
its imperishable endurance illustrated, pp. . 302, 303 
its increased spread in the last half cen- 
tury, pp 303, 304 

Blindness, judicial — how it follows wilful infideli- 
ty, pp . 92-95 

Boyle Lectureship, its origin, p. . . . 27 
Brewster, Sir David, his comments on the hostility 

shown to Galileo, pp. . 375-377 

Byron, Lord, his wretchedness, p. . • .158 

C. 

Century, the last may be accounted the brazen age 

of infidelity, p . .44 

Champollion, his aid in explaining the Zodiac in 

the temple of Denderah. p. 288 

Chesterfield, confessions of his misery, pp. . . 156, 157 

Christianty, irrational to treat it as a subject of 

ridicule, pp. . . . . 70, 73 



INDEX. 



39 1 



Chmstianity, comparison, showing its influence on 

the mind, p 236 

gives impulse to a spirit of discovery, pp. 238-240 
Christmas, how the name changed by the French 

Convention, pp. . . . . . . 71, 72 

Classics, Greek and Eoman borrowed largely from 

Hebrew poetry, pp. . % . . . . 222, 223 
Clergy, indebtedness of Letters and Science to 

them. pp. Ill, 112 

Coincidences, singular, exemplified in the lives of 

Voltaire and Gibbon, pp 140, 141 

Convention, French, their scurrilous designation of 

Christmas, pp. 71, 72 

Copernicus, his discoveries and timidity, pp. . 264, 265 

Credulity of infidels exemplified, pp. . . 93-95, 318, 319 

B. 

Death-Bed testimony, how to be regarded, pp. . 163-168 
Denderah, Zodiac in the temple of, explained — fur- 
nishes no argument against the Bible, pp. . 285-290 
De Tocquevelle, his opinion of increased reverence 

for Christianity in the French nation, p. . . 294 

B- 

Egypt, credited too far on account of learning and 

science, pp. ....... 217-219 

Enemies of Divine Eevelatton, the two great, are 

superstition and infidelity, p. • . . I'd 



392 



INDEXc 



F. 

Fall op the Roman Empire, a good history of, a 
great desideratum — what points it should em- 
brace, pp 40-43 

Fanaticism, the offspring of infidelity, pp. . . 319, 320 

France, leading minds of — greatly changed in their 

views of Christianity, pjf. .... 294', 295 

Franklin, Benjamin, his overthrow of the French 

scoffers, pp. . . . . . . . 67-69 

Frederic op Prussia, his credulity and superstition, p 95 

Galileo, persecuted for the publication of his dis- 
coveries, pp. ..... 265, 266 

abjures them. pp. .... 266, 267 

publishes his Dialogues and is again 

persecuted, pp. . . . . . 268, 269 

melancholy story of his daughter, pp. . 269, 270 

his vexation and unwise impatience, pp. . 375-377 

dies. p. 270 

Geology, instance showing how the Scriptures are 

illustrated by it. pp. .... 274, 275 
Gibbon, the distinguishing characteristics of his in- 
fidelity, pp. ... . 31-33 
his 6 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 9 
— the artfulness with which it assails 
Christianity, pp. . . . . 33-37 
its dangerous tendencies, pp. . . . 39, 40 
his relish for gross sensuality, pp. . , .38, 39 



INDEX. 



393 



Gibbon, how little of the Bible he had read. pp. . 66, 77 
his ridiculous passion for whatever was 

French, pp 98-100 

his mind unhappily neglected in his youth, pp. 103-105 
his stupor when dying, p. . . . . 174 
Porson's opinion of his ' Decline and Fall.' pp. 296, 297 
his infidelity analyzed by various critics, pp, 297-302 
Goodwin, Dr. his triumph in death, p. . . .190 

H. 

Habaxkuk, the prophet, quoted by Franklin, pp. . 67-69 
Halley, rebuked for his infidelity by Sir Isaac New- 
ton, p. . . . 67 



Heathen Philosophers, confessions of their own 
ignorance and their desire for a revelation 
from God. pp. . . . . . .116, 117 

Herodotus, his statement respecting the growth of 
grapes in Egypt explained, and the arguments 
from his mistake shewing the superior antiqui- 



ty of the Bible, pp 292, 293 

Heevey, Jas. his joy at the approach of death, pp. 171, 172 

Historians, ancient, compared with modern, pp. . 214-216 

Hobbes, his { Leviathan '.p. . . . . . .27 

his painful dread of death, pp. . . 170, 171 
Hoene, Bishop, his keen reply to Hume. p. ... 74 

Hume, compared with Rousseau and Voltaire, pp. 28, 29 

how little of the Bible he had read. p. . .66 

evidence of his want of sincerity, pp. . . 79-82 

his disgraceful advice to a young clergyman, pp. 81. 82 

his dishonesty in his History of England, p. . 83 



394: INDEX. 

Hume, a candidate for the chair of Moral Philoso- 
phy, and his infidelity embittered by his 
rejection, pp. . . . * . . 97, 98 

how surrounded when in Paris, pp. . 99, 320-322 
left to himself in his youth, pp. . . 103, 104 

confessions of his unhappiness. . . . 153-156 
his affectation of composure at the approach 

of death, pp. .... 178-180 

his actual distress, pp 181,182 

his extravagant . admiration of Rousseau fol- 
lowed by bitter denunciation of him. pp. 306-309 
mistaken story respecting his mother's death 

corrected by his nephew, p. . . . 310 
opinion pronounced upon him by Dr. Beattiepp. 311, 312 
opinion by Archbishop Magee. pp. . . 312, 314 
his falsehood exposed by Mr. Brodie. pp. . 314-316 
warning against him by Hannah More. pp. 317, 319 
denied that he was a deist, pp. . . . 321, 322 
Huss, his triumph at the stake, pp. . . . 188, 189 

I. 

Imposture, the more exposed to detection according 
to the number of those engaged in framing it, 
and of the subjects it embraces, pp. . . . 48-51 
Iotidelity, when timid and treacherous, p. . . .14 
when most able to array science in appa- 
rent conflict with religion, p. . . 19 
war between it and the Bible, a war of 

extermination, pp. . . . . 20, 21 
its debasing influence upon a true sense of 

decency, pp 72 



INDEX. 395 

Infidelity, its triumphs short, pp. ... 109, 110 

Infidels, in the early centuries, p 25 

not equalling in ability those of later times, p. 25 
in the age of Charles 2nd to what indebted 

for their fame. p. . • . . 28 
variety of their attacks, and yet how little 
they have accomplished against Chris- 
tianity, pp. . . . . 44, 45, 51-53 
their want of sincerity, pp. . . . 61, 62 
their memoirs consulted, pp. .... 63, 64 
their objections unphilosophical. pp. . . 64-78 
their motives as a class described, pp. . . 88-91 
their ridiculous credulity in matters not per- 
taining to religion, pp. . . . 93-95 
ambition for distinction, a motive for their 

infidelity, pp 102-104 

instances of their rashness in assailing 

Christianity, pp 284-293 

Inquiry, a spirit of, awakened by Christianity, pp. 209-211 
Institutions of Learning, the fruit of Chris- 
tianity, pp 230, 231 

J. 

Janeway, his wish to die. pp 199, 200 

Jerusalem, the Athens of its day for science and 

taste, p. 225 

Johnson, Dr. Sam'l. his humble prayer for illumina- 
tion of mind from God. pp 107, 108 

Jones, Sir Wm. extent of his learning, and reverence 

for the Bible, pp 126-128, 134, 135 



395 



INDEX. 



K. 

Koran, abandoned as information spreads, p. .46 

Latimer, his prediction when suffering martyrdom, p. 189 
Lawyers, distinguished, who have embraced Chris- 
tianity, p 120 

Leaders in the ranks of infidelity, p 62 

Leteonne, his explanation of the representations of 

the temple of Denderah. p. . . . . . 290 

Library, Alexandrian, how and when destroyed, p. 210 

Light of the World, why the Redeemer so called, pp. 206-208 
Literary Institutions that ignore Christianity, 

their fate. pp. ..... 232-235 

Locke, as a metaphysician, his testimony to the 

Scriptures, pp 126,137 



Iff. 

Macintosh, Sir Jas. his criticism on Gibbon, pp. 301, 302 

Magee, Archbishop, his views of the blasphemy and 

impiety displayed in Hume's writings, pp. . 312-314 
Magicians op Egypt, their infidelity, p. . . . 22 

Martyrs to Philosophy, pp 263, 264, 270 

Melancthon, his composure when dying, p. . * .189 
Miller, Hugh, his advice to improve the education 

of the clergy in physical science, pp. . . 282, 283 
Milton, his rank among Poets, pp. . . . 123, 124 
Mohammedanism, enfeebles and debases the intellect, p. 210 



INDEX. 397 

Montesqtjteij, his belief in Christianity unjustly ques- 
tioned — mistake as to his 6 Lettres 
Persanes ' — his £ Esprit des Lois,' 
and the unequivocal testimony it 
contains to the truth of the Chris- 
tian religion, pp. . . . 323-326 

his dislike of the Jesuits, p. . . 327 
Moke, Hannah, her thankfulness for death, pp. 193, 194 

her earnest caution against the writ- 
ings of Hume. pp. . . . . . 316, 317 

Mozart, affecting scene at his death, pp. . . . 194-198 

If. 

Napoleon, his character now viewed with sobriety — 

interest felt in his welfare by chris- , 
tians after his reverses, pp. . . 327, 328 
incidents of his life having an influence 

on his religious sentiments, pp. . 329-332 
remarkable confession of his faith, pp. 334-346 
Nations, raised from degradation only by some im- 
pulse from without, p. . . . . . . 226 

Newport, Sir Francis, his profligacy and despair, pp. 183-186 
Newton, Sir Isaac, his achievements in Philoso- 
phy, pp. . . 124,125,137 
his 1 Commentaries ' — striking 
prediction in. pp 138, 139 

o. 

Objections to the Bible, various and diversified, pp. 14, 15 



398 



INDEX. 



P. 

Pagan nations compared with Christian in learning 

and science, pp. . . . .. . 213-21^ 

Paley, his observation on Gibbon's scoffs, p. . . 73 

Paul, the joy he derived from faith in the Gospel, pp. 159-162 

Payson, his exultation in death, pp. ... 172, 173 

Philosophers, who professed faith in Christianity, pp. 120, 121 

Philosophy, when hostile to religion, pp. . . 244-247 

why christians warned against it. p. . . 247 

t Physical Science, at present rapidly extending, pp. 16, 17 
the evidences of Christianity to be contested 

on the field of. pp . . . 281-283 

duty of the church to provide for the contest, pp. 283, 284 

Physicians, distinguished, who believed in the Bible, p. 120 
Poets, distinguished, who were believers in the 

Bible, pp 118, 119 

H. 

Ramus, of Paris, his early efforts to reform Philoso- 
phy, p. . . ... . . 260 

Reformation, in Philosophy followed by reformation 

in Religion, pp 257-260 

Reformers, as Luther &c. their influence in over- 
throwing the authority of the Schoolmen, pp, 255-257 

Religion, low state of in the church, a fearful source 

of infidelity, pp 100-102 

Revolution in learning, how, at what time, and to 

what extent produced, pp. .... 248-252 



INDEX. 399 

Rochester, Earl of, explains the cause of infidelity, pp. 60, 61 

his confessions and recantation quoted, pp. 805, 306 

Rousseau, his confessions in his ' Emilius/ pp. . 84-87 

jg. 

Sbaptesbury, his c Characteristics.' p. .... 27 
his description of the credulity of infidels, p. . 94 
Simon, the magician, his character and spirit, p. . 25 
Solomon, his eminence in science and learning, pp. . 224, 225 
Statesmen, distinguished, who believed in the in- 
spiration of the Bible, pp. ... 119, 120 

T. 

Talleyrand, his unhappiness at his death, pp. . . 183 
Taylor, Rowland, his present to his son when suf- 
fering martyrdom, p. . . . . . .169 

"W. Cooke, vindicates the Pentateuch as to 

the growth of vines in Egypt, pp. . . . 291-293 

Temple, at Jerusalem, type of Grecian Architecture, p. 222 

Tennent, Jno. his exultation when dying, p. . . .191 

Time, a test which always overthrows imposture, pp. 45, 46 

how it argues for the Bible, pp. . . . 46-48 

Toplady, his happiness when dying, pp. . . 200-202 
Travels, in Eastern countries, cumulative evidence 

in favor of the Bible derived from them. pp. 293, 294 

Tronchin, Voltaire's physician, his reputation, pp. 178, 349 

V. 

Vines and vineyards, cultivation of in Egypt as de- 
scribed in the Pentateuch, pp. . . 291-293 



400 INDEX. 

Virgil, resemblance of his 4th Eclogue to Isaiah's 

description of the Messiah's reign, p. . . 228 

Voltaire, compared with Rousseau and Hume. p. . 30 
effects of their infidelity and of that of 

their coadjutors in the last century, pp. . 30, 31 

a master in the school of French infidelity p. . 43 
bitterness of his language when speaking of 

the Saviour, p. . . . • . 71 

confessions of his wretchedness, pp. . . 152, 153 

his agony of mind in his last illness, pp. . 175-178 

his confession at the approach of death, pp. 349-353 

Vossius, his ludicrous credulity, p. . . . . 93 

w. 

Washington, his greatness of character and humble 

reverence for the Bible, pp. . . . 128-130 

Webster, Daniel, his eminence as a statesman, and 

the humility of his faith in the Bible, pp. 130-132, 135 
state of mind at death, pp. . . . 354-358 

Wilberforce, his happiness when dying, pp. . . 192, 193 

Wilkins, his reference to the " Temple at Jerusalem 

the type of Grecian Architecture." p. . 222 
his reputation as an architect, p. . . 363 

describes the most brilliant era of the He- 
brew nation, pp. . .... 364, 365 

shows how far the temples of Greece were 

copied from the temple at Jerusalem, pp. . 365-373 



M U2 82 



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